The Knesset has recently commissioned a private television production company to make a short promotional movie about the legislative body's activity, TheMarker has learned. The project will cost the taxpayer some NIS 250,000.

Jerusalem Capital Studios Group (JCS), the studio that won the tender for producing the 10-minute movie, is expected to complete it by autumn. According to Knesset Director General Avi Balashnikov, the movie will be ready for viewing by October.

Once completed, the film will be shown to visitors who take part in guided tours of the Knesset, available to the public on Sundays and Thursdays when the plenum is not assembled there. At present, the visitors are shown around by resident tour guides, who provide guided tours in several languages.

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Knesset officials explain that the movie, which is intended for screening in the house's lecture hall, aims to demonstrate a Knesset member's daily routine at work as well as the activity that goes on in the house's committees and in the plenum.

However, the final product will omit several unpleasant events that occurred in the Knesset's more recent history. As such, visitors will not hear about the sexual harassment allegations leveled against MK Yitzhak Ziv of the Pensioner's Party, nor will they learn of the recent physical assault by attorney Amnon de Hartog, who last week slapped the ultra-Orthodox MK Yakov Cohen (United Torah Judaism) after Cohen said he was "worse than the Germans."

Meanwhile, the Knesset has undergone beautification for the swearing in of Israel's ninth president, Shimon Peres. On their way from the Knesset Plaza to the plenum, the dignitaries who will attend the ceremony will pass by a new lounge, which the MKs quickly dubbed the "Balashnikov Avenue."

Is is unclear, however, whether the new promotional movie will feature the new lounge, which will now serve as the official house lounge, or the new Knesset hall, which is currently in the final stages of construction. The new hall is expected to be opened sometime in the summer.

The new hall's cost is estimated at NIS 400 million. It includes 48 chambers for the MKs, each of which includes two rooms, a shower, a restroom and even a hair dryer for every MK.