Freedom Fighter Documentary Filmmaker Ofra Bikel Passed Away at Age 95

“Be Good” Ofra Bikel

Filmmaker and television producer Ofra Bikel, born in Israel to a family of founders of the “Mother of Colonies” Petah Tikva, gained fame in the USA in the field of documentary filmmaking. Especially in the area of criminal justice documentation, Ofra’s films not only brought understanding of system flaws and led to their correction, but also to the actual rescue of many victims wrongly convicted. Recognition of her work was reflected in over 40 awards received throughout her career, seven Emmy Awards and the prestigious John Chancellor Award, the Oscar of documentary journalism.

At the following link, you can view a recording of the speech given at the Chancellor Award ceremony and get an impression of her charming personality: https://www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org/?p=230

After her passing in August, an article about her was published in Haaretz “Israeli-American Director Ofra Bikel Whose Work Freed 13 Wrongfully Convicted Americans Dies at 95.” Extended articles about her were published shortly after in The Washington Post “Ofra Bikel, whose films freed the wrongly convicted, dies at 94” and in The New York Times “Ofra Bikel, Filmmaker With a Focus on Criminal Justice, Dies at 94”

Much has been written about Ofra’s activity in the USA and little about her activity in Israel in recent years. I will try here to complete some details known to me from my personal acquaintance with her.

I first learned about Ofra in November 2005 from the article “The Liberator,” in Haaretz, which covered her impressive work. The article mentioned, among other things, the film “The Plea,” which documented the danger of convicting innocent people through plea bargains, a phenomenon that has also taken over the justice system in Israel.

Ofra was living in New York at the time, and it took us in The Movement to Reduce the Status of Confession about a year to locate her. We told her about the struggle to reduce the probative value of confessions, which we believe is the number one cause of the degeneration of the justice system and wrongful convictions, and invited her to Israel to screen the film. We suggested to pay for her flight, but Ofra refused payment and came anyway. We met her at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv where she used to stay. Ofra, dressed in high fashion, charmed us immediately. Later, we invited her to a seafood restaurant on the beach. We sang her George Brassens’ Gorilla Song, and together we laughed at the last verse:

What happened next would be delightful

Unfortunately, I can’t

Say it, and that’s regrettable,

That would have made us laugh a little;

Because in the final moment, the judge

Screamed: “Mummy!”, crying a lot,

Like the man whom, that same day,

He had decapitated

Beware the gorilla!…

It was perhaps the third meeting when Ofra turned to me, “I thought we were friends, why didn’t you tell me you were accused of murder?” It turns out that journalist Guy Peleg had shared with her that I had been acquitted a few months earlier of a murder charge related to my father who had died following a terminal Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS. I explained to her how liberating it is when people know you for what you do and not for what was done to you. Ofra understood and accepted it. In March 2008, we screened her film “The Plea” at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, at an event we held to mark International Innocence Day.

A segment from the film “The Plea” was also screened at the 2010 Innocence Day event we held in the Knesset at the invitation of the late MK Marina Solodkin. In the segment we screened, interviews with a judge and a defendant are presented in parallel, describing how the judge ensured that the defendant gave the court a confession describing what allegedly occurred according to the prosecution. It turns out that the ability to convict based on a confession without conducting evidentiary hearings creates incentives for judges to pressure defendants in various ways to admit their guilt. As the defendant told Ofra in an interview she conducted with him, “It was his story, it was no longer my story.” You can watch the segment starting from minute 113 in “The Plea.”

I continued to stay in touch with Ofra, and she invited me when she came to Israel for a private screening of her film “The Confessions” at her good friend director Leika Beirach’s home. I found myself bursting out from the intensity of the déjà vu feeling, “You think this can’t happen in Israel?” and spontaneously told the upset guests about what I had experienced firsthand. I received a copy of the film from Ofra and screened it on Innocence Day 2011, which was held that year at Sha’arei Mishpat College, and on other occasions.

In 2012, I introduced Ofra to Dr. Dalia Tsamriyon-Halak, the Public Defender of the Southern District and director of the Defense Clinic at Sapir College. Together we developed a project under Ofra’s guidance, designed to train film students to document the world of Criminal law.

The article about the project reflected the great optimism we all felt, after her films had released prisoners in the U.S., Ofra Bikel comes to prisons in Israel. Ofra didn’t reveal her age. We estimated she was already 70+ (and we were off by about ten years…) and I was offered to join and work with her as a teaching assistant. I was at the end of my last role as a CFO and was wondering what to do. I realized I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t do everything I could to help Ofra and the project succeed.

The filming took place in the corridors of the Magistrate’s Courts on arraignment days. This time, together with her and the students, I watched the judges’ work for the first time as a researcher. Close to Ofra, I experienced her special humanity when she approached distressed defendants and naturally conversed with them about the charges against them.

In 2013, we marked Innocence Day at Sapir College with a reading performance of authentic texts by people who confessed to things they didn’t do. Ofra, of course, directed the performance. While working on the show, the students suggested that I join and tell about dealing with an indictment based on the false confession of my father’s caregiver. Again, I hesitated and agreed. I remember Ofra’s direction to me, “Your text is so dramatic, so just speak calmly and quietly.” I found it difficult to do so, and I think the students were more successful than me and paradoxically seemed more authentic. You are invited to see for yourself from the event recording at the link, https://vimeo.com/64369641

Ofra continued to agree to lend a shoulder to every event she was invited to and agreed to share her films with the Public Defender’s Office, the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University, the Center for Judicial Training, and more.

Photo Credit: Orna Alyagon-Dar
Ofra and I (on the left) in 2013 at the panel “False Confessions, Wrongful Convictions” at Carmel College, moderated by attorney Dr. Orna Alyagon-Dar and attorney Sarit Golan-Steinberg.

In December 2015, we invited Ofra as the guest of honor to the event “Truth, Justice, and Law” that we held at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. The event, marking twenty years since the passing of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, which we held together with his family in Israel, was dedicated to the struggle to reduce the status of confessions. Clips from Ofra’s films were screened alongside interviews with Emmanuel Levinas about the importance of making law in his philosophy, with Vaclav Havel, and more. To watch: Emmanuel Levinas: Truth, Justice, and Law.

Photo Credit: Yosef Zohar

Alongside paintings of well-known artists, awards, and posters of her films, there is in Ofra’s special apartment in Tel Aviv a dedication, particularly dear to her heart, from Roy Wayne Criner. Roy was convicted in 1986 of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in Texas and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Following Ofra’s film The Case For Innocence | FRONTLINE, in July 2000, the district judge and the prosecutor recommended granting him a pardon, and in August of that year, Governor George W. Bush approved it.

There are many documentary films about judicial distortions and wrongful convictions, but Ofra’s films are special in that they present the viewer with a broad picture of the phenomenon being showcased, and interviews with representatives of all legal actors. Unlike other documentary filmmakers, her style of documentation is observational; Ofra does not stand out in her films, in fact, she is not seen and only occasionally is a question heard in her voice to one of the interviewees. The feeling is that her films represent and reflect reality fully, and the editing balances many positions, but it is clear that she cares. In an interview with her, she spoke about the complexity of the editing work and weaving the different stories into a shared narrative in the film “The Plea.” However, after the screening of the film, when requests were sent to the parole boards, Ofra was asked to provide the documentation of the cases separately, and she had to return to the editing room. All the convicted individuals were released!

Link to Ofra’s page on the FRONTLINE – PBS website, including the option to watch some of her films: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/person/ofra-bikel

Every year, I start the course ‘Docu – Criminal Law’ with the opening segment from the film “The Plea,” which illustrates in the most distilled way that the justice system is based on deals and not on trials, and the dangers arising from this. In the seminar ‘Preventing Wrongful Convictions and Safety in Criminal Justice,’ I present clips from the film “What Jennifer Saw,” which illustrates the danger of relying on eyewitness testimony. For master’s students studying ‘Game Theory and Criminal Law,’ I assign as a summary exercise to analyze the film “Snitch,” which illustrates how changing the rules of the game and granting increased power to the enforcement system can work against it and against all citizens.

I asked her, Ofra, what message would you like to convey to the students? And she replied, “Be good.”

In 2019, my wife Rachel and I sent her a huge bouquet for her 90th birthday and came to visit her. Even though her caring niece Tamar warned us that Ofra’s memory was no longer what it used to be, Ofra was as clear and charming as ever, and before we parted, she said to me, “You are a good friend.” I hoped that the connection with her would preserve the memory of such impressive work over many years. Unfortunately, with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, we could no longer visit her, and she recognized me less and less in phone conversations. In the last conversation with her, Ofra no longer recognized me at all, and it pains me that I did not succeed in being a good enough friend, as she deserved.

I loved Ofra, I learned a lot from her about professionalism and humility, and I miss her very much…