Artists-in-Residence: Noga Chevion & Mika Friehmann

As part of our ongoing interviews with Artists-in-Residence at the Jacob Burns Film Center, we caught up with filmmakers Noga Chevion & Mika Friehmann to discuss their current work-in-progress. Noga and Mika are currently working on their film Bury a Dove, which was awarded the JBFC Residency at the 2025 Close Up Pitching Forum in Athens, Greece.

• How did this residency come about, and how did you learn about the Burns?
  Noga: I took part in the Close Up initiative – a unique development program for documentary filmmakers from Southwest Asia and North Africa. It was a rare opportunity to meet artists like me from neighboring countries we usually don’t get the chance to know closely. Eric Hynes, the Director of Film Curation at the Jacob Burns Film Center, was one of the special guests at the program’s final pitching session. My project was fortunate to win this precious opportunity to come here for a residency together with the film’s editor, Mika Friehmann.

• Can you tell us a bit about the film you are working on during your residency?
  Noga: I’m working on my first feature-length documentary, Bury a Dove. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, because I truly hope the film will one day screen here at the Burns – but I’ll tell you a bit: it’s the story of a daring Israeli artist named Dov Or-Ner, a Holocaust survivor whose lifelong art illuminated the darker sides of humanity. His later works confront the painful question of whether a victim is doomed to become a perpetrator – a question that, sadly, feels more relevant than ever in the past two horrible years.

• What are some of the most interesting things you’ve learned while working on your film?
  Noga: I’m working with a vast range of rare archival materials, and I’ve learned so much about the almost magical power of the camera – how it captures the slightest gestures a person might think are invisible, and how it holds the spirit of a specific time.

• What do you want viewers to learn from your film?
  Noga: It might sound cliché, but I don’t think of filmmaking as trying to make the viewer learn something. What I do hope for is to provoke curiosity, brave questioning, doubt, and critical thinking. I believe that questioning is a form of resistance.

• Which filmmakers or artists do you most admire or draw inspiration from?
  Noga: Lately I’ve been diving more into literature –  trying to fill the obvious gaps of a ’90s TV-addicted girl. I find deep inspiration in the writer Stefan Zweig – the way he manages to express specific inner viewpoints and touch people’s deepest desires and fears. I also love listening to Lhasa De Sela, mumbling along to her emotional, over-the-top delivery. I’m not someone who usually listens to lyrics – I connect more to the atmosphere, and I love when music can move me even without understanding a single word. And lastly, I love Hanoch Levin – an Israeli playwright and satirist whose grotesque, funny, not-too-serious yet deeply wise and biting style always inspires me.

• Is there anything else you’d like to add?
  Noga: I’m grateful to have this wonderful opportunity to be here with Mika at the Burns, and I hope we’ll come back with our next project. 🙂