Golda director Guy Nattiv and actor Helen Mirren receive Dove Award for joint work on 2023 biopic

By Toby Axelrod 23 February 2024, 2:37 pm

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This image released by Bleecker Street shows Helen Mirren as Golda Meir in a scene from the film "Golda." (Bleecker Street via AP)

JTA — Israeli director Guy Nattiv and British actor Helen Mirren received a Dove Award from the Cinema for Peace Foundation for their joint work in the 2023 biopic “Golda,” in which Mirren stars as Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel.

The film focuses on Meir’s role during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Nattiv and Mirren attended the awards ceremony in Berlin this week, where their prize was presented by 102-year-old Margot Friedlander, one of the oldest remaining Holocaust survivors. The ceremony took place contemporaneously with the Berlinale International Film Festival, where “Golda” premiered last year.

After receiving the award, Nattiv said on Instagram that he remained hopeful that the current Israel-Hamas war would end with the kind of rapprochement that resulted from Israel’s victory in the Yom Kippur War.

“In 1973, after the horrific Yom Kippur war, leaders took responsibility and accountability and resigned. Menachem Begin and Anwar Saadat made a historic peace agreement that saved millions of lives,” he wrote. “Today, we need to see new courageous leaders from Israel and Palestine with vision empathy and hope for a better future for the two nations.”

The ceremony took place at the Cinema for Peace gala, attended by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At the gala, Clinton’s talk was interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters, according to a video posted to YouTube. The Israeli clarinetist Giora Feidman also led the crowd in a rendition of the Hebrew folk song “Shalom Chaverim.”