'Variety' names Israeli director Tom Nesher among 2025 directors to watch

Tom Nesher was named as a 'Variety' '10 to Watch' for 2025 with Oscar contender 'Come Closer'.

By HANNAH BROWN NOVEMBER 21, 2024 00:42

Tom Nesher, who won Best Director and whose film, Come Closer, won Best Picture (photo credit: Courtesy of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television/Credit: Lior Horesh and Dekel Lazimi Lev)

Variety, the prestigious entertainment industry website/newspaper, has named its 10 directors to watch in 2025, including Israeli director Tom Nesher, whose feature film, Come Closer, was recently released. 

This is a major honor for Nesher, whose movie won the Ophir Award for Best Picture in September, which makes it Israel’s official choice to be considered for a Best International Feature Oscar. Come Closer, which tells an intense story of a young woman coping with her grief after the death of her brother, was inspired by the death of Nesher’s own brother, Ari, in an accident when he was 17.

Still from Come Closer (credit: Tom Nesher)

Nesher one step closer to an Oscar

The movie, which also won the Viewpoints Award at the Tribeca Festival in New York, was praised by the judges at that festival for its universal appeal. It was recently shown as the opening film at the 36th Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles. 

Variety will feature a profile of Nesher in a January issue timed to coincide with the opening of the Palm Springs International Film Festival.