The First Lady

The First Lady is a 2025 Israeli–German documentary by Udi Nir and Sagi Bornstein, running 82 minutes in Hebrew, German and English with Hungarian and English subtitles. The screening is part of the Freedom Of My Identity Human Rights Festival, organised by Diverse Youth Network: September 11 at 8 p.m. in the Klubterem. Admission is free.

Efrat Tilma was fourteen when a Tel Aviv police officer told her that if he ever saw her on the street in women's clothes again, he would kill her. She left Israel in 1967 and spent nearly four decades in Europe — performing in nightclubs, working as a flight attendant, having gender confirmation surgery in Casablanca because it was banned in Israel at the time, marrying, and divorcing nearly two decades later. She came home in 2005 and, on a whim, signed up as a police volunteer. At first she said nothing about herself; she had seen how her colleagues treated trans women on the street. When her commanding officer found out anyway, it turned out well: Tilma began running workshops for officers on how to deal with the trans community.

The film's present-day thread begins in 2022, with the re-election of the Netanyahu government and the formation of a far-right coalition. Tilma is convinced the world is turning back towards the place she once fled. She leaves the police force and prepares for the worst. But when the wave of protests begins, she turns her fear into activism instead: in the film's first scene she is nervously rehearsing the speech she will give at Pride in 2023.

The shoot took five years across six countries. Nir and Bornstein build the portrait out of archive footage, animation and present-day interviews, but the film's most interesting layer is how Tilma handles the filmmakers themselves. "I didn't want to. You asked me," she replies at the very start, when asked why she agreed. For years she won't let the crew into her flat, where by her own account no one else has set foot in a decade; when she finally does, they find piles of clothes and hoarded belongings. The crew offers to help her clear it bit by bit — much the way they assemble her story.

Udi Nir and Sagi Bornstein are a documentary duo based in Haifa. Their earlier work includes Golda (2019), about Golda Meir, and #uploading_holocaust (2016). The First Lady is based on Tilma's own memoir, which had already been adapted for the stage at the Habima National Theatre.

The film had its world premiere in May 2025 at the DocAviv International Documentary Film Festival, where it screened in the Israeli competition and won the Weil-Bloch Award. From there it travelled to the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, TLVFest and the UK Jewish Film Festival, and in January 2026 it screened at the New York Jewish Film Festival; more than twenty international festivals are lined up for the autumn and winter season. Time Out Tel Aviv called it "direct, honest, funny and painful," and Moment Magazine described it as one of the year's most intimate films. Tilma was made an honorary citizen of Tel Aviv in 2019 — the first trans woman to receive the title — and in 2022 the BBC named her one of the hundred most influential women in the world.