Joseph Cedar

Joseph Cedar was born in 1968 in New York City

Cedar was born in New York City in 1968 to an Orthodox Jewish family, the eldest of 6 children. His father, Howard Cedar, is a biochemist. The family moved to Israel when he was 6, and he grew up in the Bayit VeGan neighborhood of Jerusalem, where he attended the Netiv Meir yeshiva high school.

He served in the paratroopers. He then studied philosophy and theater history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem while working as a lighting technician and stage manager. He later studied film at New York University.

Back in Israel, he lived for 2 years in the settlement of Dolev while writing his first film, Time of Favor, released in 2000. It was followed by Campfire in 2004 and Beaufort in 2007, which won him the Silver Bear for Best Director in Berlin and was nominated for an Academy Award. Footnote, released in 2011, won the screenplay award at Cannes and was also nominated for an Academy Award.

In 2016 he released Norman, starring Richard Gere and Lior Ashkenazi. In 2019 he co-created the HBO series Our Boys with Hagai Levi and Tawfik Abu-Wael, and in 2024 he directed episodes of Constellation. He lives in Tel Aviv, is married to journalist Vered Kellner and has 3 children.