Avi Nesher
Avi Nesher’s many award-winning films have been integral to Israeli cinema, placing him as one of Israel’s all-time greatest filmmakers. With 20 feature films to his credit as director, his work has received prestigious awards and nominations at major international festivals and has won several Ophir Awards (the Israeli equivalent of the Academy Awards) over the last 30 years. After spending much of his teens in New York and studying international relations at Columbia University, Nesher returned to Israel to serve in the Army Special Forces and a military intelligence unit. Following four years of service and two wars, he returned to his love of cinema to make his first feature film, The Troupe, which became the highest-grossing Israeli film at the time and was recently voted one of the “Ten Best Israeli Feature Films of All Time” by the Israeli Film Critics Association. After the success of Rage and Glory (1984), producer Dino De Laurentiis convinced Nesher to come to Hollywood, setting the stage for a vibrant career between Israel, Hollywood, and back to Israel, working in a wide range of genres. His work continues to be personal, affecting, and universal, yet very Israeli, in all its diversity. He stated that, “All the good Israeli movies … were from the heart.”
