• Source: Ofra Bikel

Ofra Bikel (September 12, 1929 – August 11, 2024) was an Israeli-American documentary filmmaker and television producer. For more than two decades she was a mainstay of the acclaimed PBS series Frontline producing over 25 award-winning documentaries, ranging from foreign affairs to critiques of the U.S. criminal justice system.




Life and Career


Bikel was born in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine on September 12, 1929, to the Yechieli-Ichilov family. Her father was an electrical engineer and her mother was a special education teacher.
At age 19 she moved to Paris to study political science, graduating from the University of Paris and the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris. She then moved to New York City. She was briefly married to actor and folk singer Theodore Bikel. She was a researcher for Time, Newsweek, and ABC Television. She moved to public television, producing films for the WGBH series The World and later for the long-running series Frontline.
In the mid-1970s, Bikel moved to her native Israel and produced more than 15 films. She returned to the U.S. in 1977. In the 1990s, she began reporting on miscarriage of justice cases, starting with her "Innocence Lost" trilogy of films about a case of alleged sexual abuse in Edenton, North Carolina. Her reporting is credited with freeing 13 wrongfully convicted people from prison, including one who had been on death row. Bikel eventually returned to Israel and spent the last decade of her life there.
Her documentary films intersperse long interviews with sharp, silent, moments.
Bikel died at her home in Tel Aviv on August 11, 2024, at the age of 94.




Awards


2007 John Chancellor Award
2003 The Hillman Prize
2002 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award
2002 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
2002 Emmy Award Outstanding Investigative Journalism—Long Form
2000 NACDL Champion Of Justice Award
1994 Grand Prize at the Banff World Television Festival




Works


The Confessions, 2010
Close to Home, 2009
The Hugo Chávez Show, November 2008
When Kids Get Life, 2007
The Unexpected Candidate, March 2006
The O.J. Verdict (2005)
The Plea (2004)
Requiem for Frank Lee Smith (2002)
Saving Elian (2001)
The Case for Innocence, January 2000
Snitch (1999)
The Search for Satan (1995)
Divided Memories (1995)
Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill: Public Hearing, Private Pain (1992)
Poland—The Morning After (1990)
American Games, Japanese Rules (1988)
Israel: The Price of Victory (1987)
The Russians Are Here (1983)
Who Killed Sadat? (1982)
Innocence Lost: The Plea (1997)
Innocence Lost: The Verdict (1993)
Innocence Lost (1991)




References






External links


"PBS Frontline: 'The Hugo Chavez Show'", The Washington Post, 26 November 2008

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Theodore Bikel
• Ofra Bikel
• Ofra (disambiguation)
• Theodore Bikel
• Bianca Jagger
• Deaths in August 2024
• 2024 in Israel
• 2024 in American television
• Frontline (American TV program)
• 2024 deaths in the United States
• Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award