Director Guy Nattiv On Striving To Restore the Tainted Legacy of an Israeli Prime Minister in ‘Golda’ [Video]

The controversial yet groundbreaking Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir has been portrayed many times on both big and small screens, most notably in the 1981 Emmy-winning TV film A Woman Called Golda by Ingrid Bergman (who won a posthumous Emmy) and in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 Oscar-nominated masterwork Munich by Lynn Cohen. Onstage, Anne Bancroft took on the role in William Gibson’s Broadway play Golda in 1977, and Tovah Feldshuh played her in Gibson’s revised look at the icon in 2003’s Golda’s Balcony. Both actors received Tony nominations.

Obviously, the role is ripe for seasoned actors to sink their teeth into.

In Oscar winner Guy Nattiv’s taut, deeply affecting portrait of the long-misunderstood leader Golda, written by Nicholas Martin (Florence Foster Jenkins), she is portrayed by Oscar winner Helen Mirren who transforms into Meir with the help of makeup, hair, and prosthetics.

The film’s narrative focuses on the tense, globally-threatening Yom Kippur War of 1973 (which lasted 19 days) where Meir was forced to make difficult decisions after Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel. Some of those cataclysmic decisions were based on erroneous intel from her advisors—a fact that was not known to the public in her lifetime. Meir, while battling lymphatic cancer, faced overwhelming political and tactical challenges that could have led to Israel’s total defeat.

Golda Meir was the first female head of state in the Middle East and only the fourth in the world at the time of her election.

Israeli-born Nattiv is no stranger to divisive subject matter. Skin, the short film that won him the Oscar in 2018, daringly investigated racism and white supremacy. A year later, he expounded on his themes and created the powerful and highly underrated full-length feature, Skin, starring Jamie Bell and inspired by the true story of a neo-Nazi skinhead, raised by racists, who turns his life around.

The filmmaker’s other credits include the features The Flood, Magic Men, and Strangers. He is currently working on the historic project Tatami, a political sports thriller he is co-directing with Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (Cannes Best Actress winner for Holy Spider), marking the first film collaboration between an Israeli and Iranian helmer.

Golda is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

Awards Daily had the pleasure of Zoom-chatting with Nattiv about both the film Golda as well as the remarkable woman.