Guy Nattiv (Hebrew: גיא נתיב; born May 24, 1973) is an Israeli filmmaker and producer, based in the United States. His short film Skin won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 91st Academy Awards.
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Early life and education
Guy Nattiv was born on May 24, 1973. His grandparents were Holocaust survivors. He graduated in 2012 from Camera Obscura film school in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Career
Early career
Nattiv worked in advertising early in his career. He served as head copywriter and then chief creative director for the advertising agency Publicis Groupe for seven years.
2000s
He began his career as a film director and screenwriter in 2002 directing his graduate short film at Camera Obscura film school in Tel-Aviv, The Flood, which won dozens of international film festivals around the world including the Crystal Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for best short film. In 2003, he began collaborating with director Erez Tadmor. Together they directed the short film Strangers, starring Guy Loell and Sami Samir, about a Jew and an Arab who meet on a train and encounter a group of Neo Nazi skinheads. The film won the 2003 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best Short Film, and the Wolgin Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival in 2003. Strangers also won more than 30 international film festivals and was shortlisted short for the Oscars.
Nattiv and Tadmor's second short film, Offside, starring Liron Levo and Ido Musari, won the short film award at the 2006 Manhattan Film Festival. In 2008 Nattiv & Tadmor developed their short film Strangers into a feature of the same name. The film is led by Liron Levo and Lubna Azabal. Strangers has participated in dozens of international film festivals, including the official competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festivals and the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Strangers has been sold and distributed in more than 28 countries around the world. In addition, actress Lubna Azabel won the most Promising Actress Award at the 2008 Jerusalem Film Festival.
2010s
In 2010, Nattiv wrote and directed his second feature Mabul aka The Flood which was nominated for 4 Israeli Ophir Awards. The film stars Ronit Alkabetz, Yoav Rotman, Tzahi Grad and Michael Moshonov, who also won the Ophir Award for Best Supporting Actor. Mabul won a Special Mention at the 2011 Berlin film Festival (Generation category), the Audience Award and Special Artistic Achievement in the 2011 Thessaloniki Film Festival and was Nominated at the 2011 Asia Pacific Screen Awards for Best Children's Feature Film.
His third feature film Magic Men (In collaboration with Erez Tadmor) is a journey of a father and son in northern Greece, following a Greek magician who has disappeared. The film stars Kerem Khuri and Zohar Strauss, the script was written in collaboration with Sharon Maimon. Erez and Nattiv co-directed the film, produced by Shemi Sheinfeld and Amitan Menelson with the investment of the Rabinowitz Foundation and Channel 10. The film received four nominations at the Ophir Israeli Awards, including Best Picture, Supporting Actor and original score and won Best Actor and the Israeli Critics circle. The film hit theaters in March 2014.
Nattiv directed and wrote (in collaboration with Erez Tadmor) a 12-minute short film called Dear God starring Lior Ashkenazi and Raymond Amsalem, a poetic drama about the Western Wall guard, who follows a mysterious woman who comes to the Western Wall every day and at the end of each day, the guard reads the notes she writes and buries them in the Western Wall. He decides to fulfill her secret wishes. The film was funded by the Film and Television "Makor Fund" and was nominated for an Ophir Israeli Award in the Best Short Film category. Dear God is the last collaboration of Nattiv and Tadmor. Tadmor and Nattiv pointed out that Dear God is actually part of a trilogy where it joins Offside and Strangers as the last of the trilogy of short films without dialogue that they directed together. It shows how "People connect in absurd and extreme situations without words, just humanity".
In 2018, Nattiv made his first American short, titled Skin. He co-wrote the script with Sharon Maimon, based on Maimon's original idea. Skin was co-produced with Nattiv's wife and partner Jaime Ray Newman and stars Danielle McDonald, as well as Lonnie Chavis, Jonathan Tucker, Ashley Thomas and Jackson Robert Scott. Skin won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 91st Academy Awards. The short film focuses on the cascading effects of a single hate crime and its impact on the community. The film participated in more than 400 film festivals and won 31 awards including the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
2020s
As in January 2020, Nattiv and Jaime Ray Newman together with Keshet Studios have been known developing A Stuntwoman, a limited series based on the book of the same name by Julie Ann Johnson and Deadline's David Robb. The series is about Johnson, a pioneer for women stunt performers and one of Hollywood's first whistle-blowers. It tells the story based on the real life incidents about Johnson who in the 1970s became one of the first female stunt coordinators in Hollywood. Johnson battled Hollywood's "glass ceiling"; she took on the stunt community's "cocaine cowboys" and she fought against one of the most formidable film and television personalities of her time, Aaron Spelling.
In 2021, Nattiv and Newman created Life Unexpected, a short documentary shot over 10 years in intimate, raw home footage that tells the story of the unforgiving roller coaster of bringing life into this world. The short is a co-production between New Native Pictures, Katsina Communication, and Channel HOT. It premiered at the Lighthouse International film festival in June 2021. Toronto-based Ouat Media has the world distribution rights for the documentary.
In 2023, Nattiv teamed up with director Zar Amir Ebrahimi, from a screenplay by Nattiv and Elham Erfani and made the film TATAMI and its Asian premiere at the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival on October 25, 2023. It was also screened in the 19th Zurich Film Festival on October 2, 2023. In February 2024, XYZ Films acquired US distribution rights to the film. It stars Arienne Mandi, Ebrahimi, Jaime Ray Newman, Ash Goldeh and Sina Parvaneh. It had its world premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2023, receiving positive reviews from the critics and audience. The film follows Iranian female judoka Leila (Arienne Mandi) and her coach Maryam (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), who travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran's first gold medal. This includes a possible encounter with an Israeli athlete, something that the Mullah regime prohibits. Midway through the competition, Leila and her coach receive repeated threats from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and drop out of the tournament. With her own and her family's freedom at stake, Leila faces a difficult choice: feign injury and comply with the Iranian regime as Maryam implores her to do, or defy them both and fight on, for the gold. With Nattiv and Ebrahimi as co-directors, the project marks the first feature film to be co-directed by an Iranian and an Israeli filmmaker. It is produced by Adi Ezroni and Mandy Tagger Brockey, alongside New Native Pictures. WestEnd Films acquired international rights in February 2023. Other production companies involved in the project include White Lodge Productions, Maven Pictures, Tale Runners and Sarke Studios.
Critical reception
Variety called him "an undeniably gifted filmmaker" and his short film Skin a "stunner". Avner Shavit, a veteran film critic for Israeli news site Walla! told The Wrap "he'd never seen anything like it".
Accolades
Nattiv's film Skin won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 91st Academy Awards. As of May 2021, Nattiv and Moshe Mizrahi were the only Israeli directors who have won an Academy Award.
According to Gal Uchovsky, Nattiv's win was "a big deal", because it could open doors for other Israeli filmmakers with dreams of making it big in Hollywood. Nattiv has been an official member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2019. In that same year, he also received the IFF Achievement in Film Award at the 33rd Israel Film Festival. Nattiv was inducted as a new member of European Film Academy in 2024.
Personal life
In 2012, Nattiv married actress and producer Jaime Ray Newman. In 2015, Nattiv moved to Los Angeles, California. The couple have two daughters together. They started their production company in 2021 named New Native Pictures.
