Ronit Avni

Ronit Avni "is the Founder and Executive Director of Just Vision". "Ronit recently directed and produced the documentary film, Encounter Point, which received the 2006 San Francisco International Film Festival Audience Award and was an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival, Hot Docs, Atlanta, Dubai and Jerusalem International Film Festival. Encounter Point has screened at the International Finance Center, the United Nations and in Gaza, Tel Aviv, Jenin and more than 31 cities worldwide. Ronit appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005 with her colleague, Joline Makhlouf and her work was featured on Oprah.com. From 2000-2003, she co-produced short videos and online video advocacy features in collaboration with filmmakers in Senegal, Burkina Faso, the United States and Brazil while working for Peter Gabriel’s human rights organization, WITNESS. WITNESS advances human rights advocacy using video and communications technology. Ronit has trained non-governmental organizations from Honduras to the Gambia to produce videos as a tool for public education and grassroots mobilizing, as a deterrent to further abuse and as evidence before courts and tribunals. She wrote and produced a short documentary film, Rise, with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Excerpts from Rise were featured on PBS’s World At Large. She co-edited the book, Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism (Pluto Press, UK), with staff from WITNESS. Ronit’s essay, “Inverting the Shame-Based Human Rights Documentation Model in the Context of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict,” was published in the spring 2006 edition of American Anthropologist. Ronit was among eight American-based recipients of the 2003-2005 Joshua Venture Fellowship for young Jewish social entrepreneurs. She has lectured at universities across North America.

"Ronit graduated with honors with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Vassar College. She received a Burnam Fellowship to intern at B’Tselem: the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. While abroad, Ronit volunteered for the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). Ronit acquired a DEC in Professional Theatre Studies from Dawson College." [1]