Michael began his work in the Cinema business when he was 8 years old, rolling film reels in the screening room of Jerusalem's old cinema houses, running the manual subtitles machine. When he was 15 years old he rented a slide projector and went to schools that rented his shows, to screen his "frame by Frame" films, after he rented a 16 mm projector and screened real moving pictures.
One year after he rented Cinema Rex in Jerusalem, where he began screening films he rented in Tel Aviv's distribution offices.
In this year he began traveling around the world, looking for good Box Office films (mainly From the Italian Mega Production companies of those days) - Action & Commercial in one hand - and classic art movies from the other (such as Vittorio De Sica - "Bicycle Thieves" "A Miracle in Milan").
In 1969 he began producing his own Feature Films with a new director that appeared one day in his office, The Late Mr. George Ovadia (known as Gurgy). In this first film he produced, titled "ARIANA" he also took a young un-employed assistant director that came looking for work - The well known Paul L. Smith (the well remembered Jailer in "Midnight Express").

Two of his most successful Self Produced Feature films were:

• "SIX DAYS TO ETERNITY" about Israel's Six Days War. This film was released one week after the end of the war, after work around the clock of a well trained production staff in command of Michael. This film was shown in cinemas around Israel, and broke all Box Office records known until these days - 1,200,000 entries (almost the number of Israeli citizens in 1967).

• "RABBI FISHKE' GOES TO WAR" An Army Action Comedy that made Box Office of 850,000 entries, and was released theatrically also in the US, Italy and many other territories.

Many stories are being told about Michael legendary early days in the film industry among them are the story about 2 films with the same star he edited to one (with no editing device) and titled them together: "TO BERLIN & BACK". This new version of the 2 films Broke these times all Box Office results in Israel and went on playing for several months with all tickets been sold weeks in advance. (Many people remember that in some parts of this film the hero had a mustache and in some the mustache disappeared).


Benni Shvily  -  SHOVAL's - Co-President
A veteran Israeli Air Force Production Unit Chief.
Benni began his filmography career when he was 1 hour old, eating & drinking films, sound-tracks, etc. When he was 9, he began producing directing and shooting his own production, some won Local awards for youth cinema - first in 8 & High 8 mm movies, and than with an old 16mm Bolex with a manual spring that had to be winded after each shot of 45 seconds.
In the army, Benni formed a special Air Force Film Production Unit with the help of another cinema frick, Mr. Avi Shemesh (a well known TV scriptwriter today) and together they have produced hundreds of hours of educational and professional films for the Air Force needs.
When Benni was released from the army he produced, co-directed and photographed a 30 minutes 16mm featuret titled: "A POINT OF VIEW" telling the story of a blind young man that opens his eyes for the first time, in the age of 20, thanks to a new operation, to see a world he was only dreaming of with the imagination of a blind man, that doesn't know the meaning of color, beauty, etc. This film was shown in Israel's Cinematheques and got real good critics.
In 1993, Benni directed and photographed a High Budget International Feature film titled: "RAIDERS IN ACTION" starring Paul Smith. This film was sold to 35 countries around the world, and was released theatrically very successfully in most of them.
These days Benni is dealing with the production of new technologies and medias in SHOVAL (New 3D production technology, Internet and On-Line products production & Distribution), besides his activities in the International & Domestic distribution of Feature films, Video & TV films & Series.

Alex Shvily   -   V. President - Programming
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