Negev Film Fund

Shorts in the Desert is a filmmaking initiative dedicated to producing short films inspired by and filmed across the landscapes of the Negev and the Arava.

The project’s goal is to foster creative filmmaking in Israel’s southern region and to support the development of a local film industry. Today, more than a decade after its establishment, we can see the fruits of this investment in the form of a growing and vibrant filmmaking community throughout the Arava and the Negev.

Each year, a group of emerging filmmakers is invited to take part in an inspiration tour through the Negev and Arava regions. The tour offers participants an opportunity to engage closely with the area’s unique human and geographical landscapes and to draw inspiration for writing original short film scripts.

In the next stage, the scripts developed during the tour are submitted to a professional committee, which selects the most promising ones to move forward to production. The supported films are produced and shot within the region, and their premieres are held at the following edition of the Arava International Film Festival.

In 2020, we established the Arava Film Fund in collaboration with the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund and the Arava Community Center, with the support of the Israeli Ministry of Culture and the Central Arava Regional Council.

The Fund was founded to create a sustainable and continuous platform for film activity in the region, building upon the foundations laid by the Arava International Film Festival and the Shorts in the Desert project.

Five years later, in 2025, the three film funds operating in the Negev and Arava regions joined forces to form a single unified entity: The Darom Film Fund (based in Mitzpe Ramon), The Negev Film Fund (at Sapir College), and The Arava Film Fund.

The new fund’s shared goals are to promote local filmmakers and to encourage film production in the Negev. This unification allows the fund to operate with greater independence and artistic freedom, to support a broader range of projects, and to continue strengthening the region’s growing film industry.

Today, the unified fund serves as a dynamic incubator for the development and production of narrative, documentary, and animated films, as well as international collaborations, among them the Shorts in the Desert project, which continues to take place each year.

Another new initiative launched by the fund this year is Feature in the Negev, which supports the development and production of feature-length films.

As part of the 14th Arava International Film Festival, we are proud to present five films produced over the past year with the support of the regional film funds: four new short films and the feature film Burning Man, directed by Eyal Halfon, produced with the support of the Arava Film Fund, and recently awarded Best Film at the Haifa International Film Festival.