Nathan-ism
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Nathan-ism

Director and Producer Elan Golod, Producer Melanie Vi Levy

At the end of World War II, Nathan Hilu, the son of Syrian Jewish immigrants to New York, received a life-changing assignment from the U.S. Army: to guard the top Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. This experience fueled a lifetime of artistic inspiration for Nathan, who spent the next 70 years obsessively creating a visual narrative from his memories. But what happens when those memories take on a life of their own?


Year of Completion

2023

Theatrical Release
  • 2+ cities including NY and LA (2024)
Festivals
  • Hot Docs
  • DOC NYC
  • DocAviv
  • Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
  • Docudays Ukraine
  • San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
  • Chicago Jewish Film Festival
  • Heartland Film Festival
  • NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival
  • Portland Jewish Film Festival
  • Rhode Island Film Festival
  • JxJ DC Film Festival
  • Sedona Film Festival
  • St. Louis Film Festival

Elan Golod

Elan Golod

Director, Producer

After first being exposed to filmmaking during his military service in Israel, Elan honed his skills at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has worked in the film industry as an editor on a wide range of projects and as a short-form documentary director. After being part of the editing team on Mike Birbiglia’s film Sleepwalk with Me (Sundance, SXSW), Elan co-directed and edited the documentary short “Mike Birbiglia: How to Make What This Is.” While working on Nathan-ism, he also co-edited Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice (SXSW, Tribeca) and Maya Zinshtein’s documentary Til Kingdom Come (DocAviv, IDFA).

Melanie Vi Levy

Melanie Vi Levy

Producer

Melanie Vi Levy is a documentary editor, producer and director specializing in non-fiction storytelling with a background in theater, performance and narrative film. She has contributed as editor and key creative team member on projects including Hillbilly (Winner Best Documentary LA Film Festival), What She Said, The Art of Pauline Kael (Berlinale, Telluride Premiere), Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines, (SXSW Premiere, Independent Lens), and United Skates (Emmy Nominee, HBO). She has directed and produced award-winning short documentaries which have been broadcast on POV (“A Different Color Blue”) and played at international festivals (“My Name is Sydney”, “The Secret Life of Beards”). She is currently producing and directing Untitled Ping Chong Documentary about New York theater artist, Ping Chong, in development. She holds a BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in Documentary FIlm and Video from Stanford University.

Project logline and bios courtesy of the grantees.