Israel’s Joseph Cedar to direct Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver in new film ‘Useful Idiots’

Cedar’s films have won major prizes at international film festivals, including Cannes and the Berlinale.

Joseph Cedar, one of Israel’s most acclaimed filmmakers, will direct screen legends Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver in an upcoming film to be called Useful Idiots, according to a report on the website, Deadline.com

Two of Cedar’s movies – Beaufort and Footnote – received Academy Award nominations for Best International Feature.

His most recent film, Norman, was set in the US and Israel and starred Richard Gere.

Six years ago, he co-created the HBO miniseries Our Boys, about the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, an Arab boy, by Jewish extremists as an act of revenge for the murders of three Jewish teens by Hamas in 2014.

Cedar’s films have won major prizes at international film festivals, including Cannes and the Berlinale. He was born in New York and moved to Israel as a child with his parents. Initially, he specialized in films about the Modern Orthodox community, in which he grew up.

Useful Idiots, which Cedar wrote with 60 Minutes producer Shachar Bar-On, tells the story of a veteran reporter, to be played by Streep, who covers New York’s high-end real-estate market.

Tired of writing fawning portraits of wealthy buyers, she starts investigating the sale of a multi-million-dollar penthouse to a mystery buyer. Her search for the buyer leads her to an oligarch involved in all kinds of corruption and crime, and she is determined to get to the bottom of the story, even as she realizes she and her family may be in danger.

The film will be produced by Fifth Season, with Closer Media’s Zhang Xin and Jonathan King (Spotlight, Roma), Bruce Cohen (Silver Linings Playbook, American Beauty), and William Horberg. Black Bear will present the movie at the American Film Market.

Streep, Weaver take center stage

Three-time Oscar winner Streep is currently appearing in the comedy series, Only Murders in the Building, and is filming The Devil Wears Prada 2, reprising her role as a regal, demanding fashion magazine editor said to be based on Anna Wintour of Vogue. Streep has been nominated for 21 Oscars, more than anyone else, and early in her career, won an Emmy for appearing in the series, Holocaust.

Weaver, a three-time Oscar nominee, will appear this December in James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash. She has made a mark in the Alien and Ghostbusters franchises, as well as series dramas such as Gorillas in the Mist and The Year of Living Dangerously.

Streep and Weaver attended the Yale School of Drama together, but this is the first time they have been cast in a movie together.