01/11/2026 | 17:30 | Cinematheque - Hall 1
“Bubot”, “Asfur”, “Scarred”, “Maktub”, “Chateau Ein Karem”, “Forgiveness”, “Cat’s Luck” – and now “Baesh U'Bamayim”
Looking at these titles side by side, one realizes that Hanan Savyon and Guy Amir are far more than a successful creative TV duo. For nearly two decades, they have built a distinct, consistent, and recognizable Israeli oeuvre – in television, cinema, and theater. They write, act, and direct together, continuing to tell stories from within the same rare partnership in both life and work
I love creators with a voice – where several moments of screentime are enough to recognize who wrote it, even if the credits haven’t come up yet.
Hanan Savyon and Guy Amir have one such voice.
They have a very long partnership behind them. Writing together, acting together, succeeding together, and sometimes, I assume, also arguing together. Along this journey, they have built a very distinct creative world for themselves: A world of men and friendships, family and loyalty, love and fear, a very particular Israeliness, and especially a world where laughter and pain are never truly separate.
On the first day of the Cinema South Festival, I sit with them for an open conversation about this journey, a moment before the worldwide premiere of the first two episodes of the second season of their Netflix series “Baesh U'Bamayim” (Through Fire and Water), which will launch the festival’s events.
I wish to understand together with them how this thing works.
How do two people write together for years and still manage to surprise one another. Who has final say. What happens when one of them is certain a scene is funny but the other thinks it’s awful. How does friendship become an operating method, and how to maintain it when creation becomes a profession, a business, and success.
We’ll discuss writing and acting, comedy and pain, success and also the instances when things didn’t quite work out. We’ll try to analyze several scenes and uncover what lies behind them – and to ask how a story born from this very specific place we live in can cross language, culture, and geographic barriers and reach audiences worldwide.
But more than all that, this will be a conversation about creative partnership.
About two creators who’ve chosen time and again to travel this road together.
Hanan Savyon and Guy Amir – Who’s the Fire, Who’s the Water? – A Masterclass on Shared Friendship, Writing, and Creation.
Moderated by Rani Bleier Elkabets, head of the School of Audio & Visual Arts at Sapir College and chairman of the Cinema South Festival.
