Maftsir was born in Riga in 1947 and made aliyah to Israel in 1971, where he works at Yad Vashem as an independent film director. He has produced over 400 documentaries for film and television and is the director of at least 30 documentary films.

He’s currently working on a new film about Lithuanian Righteous Gentiles. When he was in Lithuania in 2008 he visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community to talk about best to commemorate those who heroically rescued Jews during the Holocaust. This time Maftsir met sister Leonora Kasiulytė of the Congregation of the Love of God at the Community concerning her book and collection of material about Marija Rusteikaitė, a woman who saved 15 Jews without regard for her own life during World War II. He also met Genutė Žilytė, a history teacher from the Rožynas Pre-Gymnasium who has been doing tolerance and Holocaust educational projects for 12 years now to give greater understanding to Lithuanian society on the scope and nature of the tragedy. She’s been directing the school’s Tolerance Education Center since 2004, participating with students in projects by the International Commission and civic initiatives, collecting Holocaust survivors’ testimonies and of those who were deported to Siberia and maintaining the mass murder sites at Kurganava and Žalioji forest. Every year creative work by students at the pre-gymnasium on the topics of the Holocaust and Soviet repression of Lithuanians is presented to the people of the city and region of Panevėžys.

Maftsir also spoke with Panevėžys Jewish Community member Vidmantas Markevičius, who showed him documents about the story of his father and grandfather during the Holocaust, and how they, at risk to their own lives, saved Jews. There are plans for another documentary film about this.