Born in Berkeley, California in 1970 and raised between Berkeley and Tel Aviv, Israel, Rachel Leah Jones is a socially and politically engaged documentary filmmaker who specialises in Israel/Palestine. Her directorial credits include: 500 Dunam on the Moon (2002) about a Palestinian village transformed into a Jewish artists’ colony; Targeted Citizen (2010) about the inequality of Palestinian citizens of Israel; and Gypsy Davy (2012) about her father, a white American who reinvented himself as a Spanish flamenco guitarist. She received her first APSA nomination in 2019 for Advocate, which played at the Sundance Film Festival and which she won multiple awards and was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Film at APSA. Jones has also produced others’ works including Simone Bitton’s Wall that played the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and emerging. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
