Guy Nattiv: WIZO Grad and Award-Winning Director

Guy Nattiv, the talented Israeli director of the highly anticipated new movie “Golda” studied his craft at a WIZO school. Nattiv is one of only two Israeli directors to ever have won an Academy Award.

The movie about Israel’s only female prime minister played by the Oscar-winning British actress Helen Mirren was released in Israel a week ago after premiering at the Berlin Film Festival. Nattiv told i24NEWS that he is receiving a “very emotional wave of reactions” from the Jewish community in the U.S. and around the world.

Up until 2004, WIZO operated a vocational/arts high school in Tel Aviv, which was then called “WIZO Tzarfat” (WIZO France), because it was historically sponsored by our French federation. Guy Nattiv studied there.

In an interview with Israel Hayom for a front-page article, Nattiv said, “As I child I was very frustrated and I didn’t know quite what to do with myself. As soon as I got to WIZO France High School in Tel Aviv I began to blossom. I discovered myself and I found my calling.”

Today, Nattiv is an Academy Award®-winning filmmaker. His first short film in the United States, SKIN, won the 2019 Academy Award® for Best Live Action Short, along with many festivals around the world.

Before coming to the United States, Nattiv was a lauded director in Israel, where his first feature, Strangers, was in competition at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals in 2008. His second feature, The Flood, won the Generations prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2012 and was nominated for six Ophir Awards, where it won Best Actor.

Nattiv now lives in Los Angeles with his wife/producing partner Jaime Ray Newman, and their two daughters. Together, the couple runs New Native Pictures.

His next movie, “Tatami,” is an historic collaboration with Iranian actress Zar Ebrahimi. The movie tells a story of an Iranian judoka who aims at winning the gold in the world championship but is pressured by Tehran to give up on her dream or else her family will pay the price. The film will vie for recognition in the esteemed Horizons category at the upcoming Venice Film Festival.