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The First Lady

​Israeli transgender pioneer Efrat Tilma had to flee the country as a teenager. Now in her seventies and a celebrated activist, she must fight for her rights once again, while the country spirals into political and social regression.

Efrat Tilma, a trailblazing transgender woman, was forced to flee Israel as a teenager in the 1960s, after a police officer threatened to kill her if he ever saw her again walking the streets of Tel Aviv in women’s clothing. Today, at 75, she is a prominent LGBTQ+ activist and the first transgender volunteer in the Israeli police force. As the country descends into an unprecedented social and political crisis, Efrat confronts the traumas that shaped her life and once again fights for her place in the world.

FESTIVALS

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TECHNICAL DETAILS

Israel / Germany / USA

Release year 2025
Runtime 82 min

PARTNERS

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TEAM

Directors  Udi Nir, Sagi Bornstein
Producers  Christian Beetz, Georg Tschurtschenthaler, Udi Nir, Sagi Bornstein

DOP  Uriel Sinai, Daniel Binsted

PITCHING EVENTS

CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, 2022

Copro, Tel-Aviv, 2022

Cologne Film Festival, 2022

HotDocs, Toronto, 2023

Copro Impact Lab, Tel-Aviv, 2023-24.

Agora Docs, Thessaloniki, 2024

JFI residency, San Francisco, 2024

© 2025 uvs films

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uvs films is a Haifa based documentary film production company, run by filmmaker duo Udi Nir and Sagi Bornstein. Their work includes GOLDA (2019), #uploading_holocaust (2016), and Kafka's Last Story (2011). 

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