Producer and Director: Avi Bohbot / Writen by Aviad Segal, Avi Bohbot / 90 min English, Hebrew / Chaos Films Ltd./ Production Status: Development – Fund Raising
The Story of Krav Maga
It began here, in Israel, between WWII and our independence. The right men met the right circumstances and the most efficient, effective and simple self-defense method in the world was born – Krav Maga.
This is the epic story of the Krav Maga and the people who created it. Imi chose to fight the wave of anti-Semitic violence in his hometown Bratislava, but eventually was forced to flee the rising Nazi regime and arrived in Palestine, where he was chosen to teach self-defense to the elite underground force of the Jewish community.
Following Israel’s independence, Imi continued to train the soldiers of the Israeli army, and due to Krav Maga being a simple and aggressive method, it became a necessity for every soldier tipping the scale in the battlefield. After he retired, he fulfilled his dream – to open his own school and teach self-defense to civilians.
Thus Imi met young Eli Avikzar, a hot-tempered juvenile delinquent from the poverty-stricken slums of Netanya who immigrated with his family to Israel from Casablanca. They become a teacher and student – each from a culture so vastly different, each from a world and generation of his own – yet together they formed a bond that went well beyond their differences.
Imi recognized in Eli his sheer talent, his creativeness and saw in him what he himself was – a lost boy who can finally find his way in life through the path of martial arts. Eli found in Imi a father, a mentor, and together they developed the Krav Maga.
From them, the Krav Maga has spread to the world – Taught in every major city around the globe such as Paris, LA, New York, Tokyo, London, Rome, Madrid and Berlin. It is constantly used in Hollywood action films and by most of the special military forces in the world. Even today it is ever evolving, as Imi and Eli’s students strive to continue the founder’s philosophy: “Simple, Short, Fast”.