New Mandate Aims to Share More Jewish Stories With the World: ‘The Gifts of the Jews are Many’
Matti Leshem is fast emerging as one of the industry’s most prominent leaders in the arena of Jewish storytelling. As co-founder, alongside Joel Greenberg of New Mandate Films, Leshem’s mission is to mine the vast landscape of “Jewish themes” in ways that are nuanced, authentic and boldly cinematic.
New Mandate’s debut biopic, “The Survivor,” from Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson and based on the life of Holocaust survivor and professional boxer Harry Haft (played by Ben Foster), fielded critical acclaim following its 2021 release on HBO, earning an Emmy nomination for outstanding television film. The gritty emotional saga is a far cry from “The Shallows,” the 2016 shark attack thriller starring Blake Lively that Leshem produced alongside wife Lynn Harris and their Weimaraner Republic Pictures shingle. But it’s box office juggernauts like “The Shallows” that enable Leshem, whose own father “was a Holocaust survivor who lived out his years during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia and was in the Resistance,” the opportunity to make such deeply important, painfully raw independent dramas as “The Survivor.”
New Mandate, founded in 2017, was born of Leshem’s fiery determination to share more Jewish stories with the world.
More from Variety
'The Light in the Darkness' Creator Shares How His Video Game Can Educate People About the Holocaust
“There’s been a paucity of Jewish stories in Hollywood,” says Leshem. “And a lot of times, the barriers to entry for Jewish stories are actually the Jewish executives. It’s time for us as a people to put our heads up and hold them up proudly. You know, the history of the Jewish people is the history of Western civilization. The Jewish people are not just the people of the book — we’re the original IP holders.”
To that end, New Mandate Films is developing a robust slate of projects, including “Pump It Up,” a feature comedy loosely based on Leshem’s real-life experience at his son’s bar mitzvah. Pic was penned by Benjamin Lapides and Marquita Robinson, and produced with Kerry Washington and Pilar Savine’s Simpson Street Entertainment. Also on the slate is “The Eight Dates of Chanukah,” a holiday rom-com written by Emily Hirshey; and “Brick City,” a TV series adaptation of Leslie K. Barry’s bestseller “Newark Minuteman,” with Levinson and Tom Fontana attached as producers. New Mandate is also partnered with Marc Platt Prods. and the Jim Henson Co. on a screen version of Eric Kimmel’s beloved children’s classic “Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins.”
“I wanted to break these stories out as a separate brand because I thought I’d have some power there, and I realized, people spend billions of dollars a year really putting antisemitic messages into the world, and wouldn’t it be great if somebody spent a little bit of money trying to put positive messages into the world around Jewish themes?” says Leshem. “For me, a Jewish theme is anything from the Bible to modern Israeli literature. The gifts of the Jews are many, and I was fortunate enough to meet my co-founder, Joel, who made it possible for me to go after this in a large way. We’re taking very common genres and bringing them into the Jewish world.”
New Mandate is also collaborating with a bevy of top Israeli creatives to bring Israeli TV formats to the states, relaunching them as American series to reach an even broader audience.
“There’s so much talent in Israel and we are in touch with every top producer and writer in Israel, feeding that need to bring Israeli talent to the states and show the world how great Israel is, not just as a place of strife and political difficulty, but as a place of great culture,” says Leshem.
To those Jewish executives in Hollywood that have kept their heads down and refused to greenlight Jewish-themed projects, Leshem urges them to “take a little bit of pride in the fact that they are Jewish.”
“They don’t have to fight anymore,” Leshem asserts. “This is the moment, especially in light of the antisemitism that we’re experiencing everywhere in the world, to hold their heads up high and to be proud of the fact that they’re Jews — and to be willing to tell these incredible stories that come out of the wellspring of Jewish culture.”
This article is part of Variety’s Antisemitism and Hollywood package and was written before October.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
