Israeli film trailblazer Lia Van Leer dies at 90

Romanian immigrant and Israel Prize laurate founded Haifa, Jerusalem Cinematheques, capital's annual film festival

By ToI Staff 14 March 2015, 12:54 pm
Lia Van Leer (left) shakes hands with Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On at the funeral of former MK Shulamit Aloni in Kfar Shmaryahu on Sunday, January 26, 2014. (photo credit: Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Lia Van Leer, an Israeli cinema pioneer and Israel Prize laureate, died Saturday in Jerusalem aged 90.

Van Leer came to Israel from Romania when she was 16, and stayed with the death of her parents at the outbreak of World War II. She studied at Hebrew University and met her husband, Dutch filmmaker and engineer Wim Van Leer, in Tel Aviv.

She and her husband founded the country’s first cinematheque in their Haifa living room in 1955. She went on to establish the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Israel Film Archive and the Jerusalem Film Festival.

She was awarded the Israel Prize in 2004 for her life’s achievements, and the President’s Medal in 2014.

Van Leer died at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital. Details concerning her funeral were not immediately published.

Former Israeli president Shimon Peres presents Lia Van Leer, founder of the Haifa and Jerusalem Cinematheques, the Presidential Award in Jerusalem. January 30, 2014. (photo credit: Mark Neyman/GPO/Flash90)

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