Avraham Heffner

Avraham Heffner was born in 1935 in Haifa

Heffner was born in Haifa in 1935 and grew up there. He attended the Hebrew Reali School in the city.

He joined the army in 1953 and served in the Nahal Army Band. He then studied English literature and philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and later studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. In New York he studied philosophy at City College, began studying film and directed 3 short films.

He started as an actor in Uri Zohar's Hor BaLevana in 1965. His short film Slow Down from 1967 won a prize at the Venice Film Festival. He belonged to the New Sensitivity group of personal filmmakers, and wrote and directed But Where Is Daniel Wax? in 1972.

From 1974 he worked with Educational Television and co-wrote the children's series The Magic Door. His films Aunt Clara (1977) and Laura Adler's Last Love Affair (1990) dealt with older Yiddish-speaking Jews from Europe. In 1998 he made the television drama Small Country, Great Man.

He lectured on film and screenwriting at Tel Aviv University for many years and wrote novels and books on cinema. He received the Ophir Award for lifetime achievement in 2004. He died in 2014 and was buried at Kibbutz Tzora.