Amir Ovadia Steklov was born in 1987 in Jerusalem, Israel. His passion for films and animation began at a very young age. At six years old, Amir was already experimenting with moving images and stop motion animation. At age nineteen, with no previous formal education, he created a 20 FPS stop motion film with dynamics and character, his first short animation Fireworks (2006). The film was screened at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Amir’s advanced technique and artistry were received with much wonder and appreciation.

    This project led to Amir’s enrollment in one of the most renowned and exclusive film-directing programs in Israel, at the Sam Spiegel Film Academy - Jerusalem. During his years in film academy, Amir’s style began taking shape. With strong influences that ranged from David Lynch, Japanese animations, to underground independent films, Amir was standing out in his class with a mature cinematic voice and adventurous visual visions.

    After film academy, Amir was running the Jerusalem Animation Studio, a post production and animation workshop, and was working with major clients such as the Israel Festival, Eilat Chamber Music Festival, On-Stage and many others. Meanwhile, he was teaching Stop-Motion Animation at the Jerusalem Open House, a community center for LGBTQIA. After two years of running his own studio, Amir was hired by Channel 10 News to work as a senior video editor.

    In July 2015, after two years of intensive and successful news editing, Amir moved to Berlin, Germany. The reasons were mixed: as filmmaker, he felt an urge to further explore creative realms and to discover new horizons, inspiration and stimulation. Politically, he reached a point of extreme disagreement and criticism of Israeli policies, particularly regarding the occupied areas. In Berlin he found the focus and the support for expressing his political views in his cinematic activity.

    Slowly but surely, Amir found his circle of film-makers, friends and colleagues, focusing mostly on independent, queer, activist short films. He named his new studio The Glass Prince — a literal translation of his name from Arabic and Russian. He has been working closely with fellow filmmakers such as Popo Fan, Pina Brutal, Ines Moldavsky and others. He also offers post production solutions such as video editing and animation, working recently on a successful Israeli sitcom called Aba Metapelet (Hebrew: Father-Nanny) for the TV-Channel TeenNick.

    Meanwhile, Amir was also working as a professional stills photographer in the food, tourism and event industries, providing photography service to major clients such as Prism - Michelin star restaurant in Berlin, Chatbot Summit, Schneeeule, and many others. His artistic visual works include street photography, landscapes, infrared and astrophotography, as well as urban time-lapses. Those works are exhibited in a few local galleries and cafes in Berlin and featured on Ynet.co.il, the most popular Israeli news website.

    Amir’s Berlin debut was his 2019 short film Between Two Walls that won the Best Animated Short award at the Berlin independent Film Festival 2020, his 2020 Don't Be a DICK! won Best animation at SPLICE 2021 film festival in NYC and his 2022 Bi The Way is currently having a rich festival run, with a world premiere at Frameline46 and Outfest40.

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   Amir's upcoming films include his 1st feature film (pre-production), full length documentary (post-production), a dance film (in development) and more short films (post-production).