Education
After his Israel Defense Forces service, he studied French literature at the Sorbonne, Paris.
After his Israel Defense Forces service, he studied French literature at the Sorbonne, Paris.
Heffner served in the Israel Defense Forces with the Nahal Army Band. His love for the cinema began, according to him, at the age of 17. He began his career as an actor (in Uri Zohar"s Hor BaLevana).
In the 1960s and the 1970s he was among the Israeli directors creating more personal and social films (in the "New Sensitivity" genre), films that were influenced from the Avant-garde-European cinema.
The most significant example for these type of films is Heffner"s first feature,, which he wrote and directed., Heffner"s most important and famous film, is considered by film critics and Israeli film researchers to be the best Israeli movie of all time.
Laura Adler"s Last Love Affair is a eulogy to the Israeli Yiddish theater and its old actors. The television film he created in 1998, Eretz Ktana, Ish Gadol, is a cynical look at the ever-changing State of Israel of the 1990s and the Zionist myths, which in Heffner"s opinion, are now gone.
Heffner lectured for many years on filmmaking and screenwriting at the Tel Aviv University.
His films are held at the Jewish film archives. Heffner died on 19 September 2014. Heffner was a screenwriting lecturer in the mid-1970s at the Tel Aviv University, and influenced many well-known Israeli filmmakers such as Eitan Green, Renen Shor, Ari Folman, Hagai Levi, Menashe Noy and Dover Kosashvili.