A Holocaust survivor became a social media star.
Then October 7 changed everything.
In partnership with the
It gives me tremendous pleasure to congratulate you on my personal behalf and on behalf of the State of Israel... on the completion of a feature documentary about your life. ‘Follow Me’ charts the course of your extraordinary life with wisdom and charm... because it is you, Gidon, who are its main character... through whom a much broader human story is echoed and touched.
Isaac Herzog, President of the State of Israel
Project Overview
At 91, Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev is a self-described rascal and lifelong optimist. During the pandemic, he and his partner, Julie Gray, began sharing his story on TikTok, reaching millions with humor, candor and hope. Filmed over five years across Israel, the United States and Europe, Follow Me captures Gidon’s extraordinary second life and what happened when his traumatic past collided with the present after October 7. With intimate footage and special appearances by Sharon Stone, Andy Cohen and Montana Tucker, the film follows a man still committed to joy, connection and making things better.
The Team Behind the Film
Director
Yaniv Rokah
Yaniv Rokah’s directorial debut, Queen Mimi, with appearances by Zach Galifianakis and Academy Award winner Renee Zellwegger, won Best Documentary at the Manhattan Film Festival, Hot Springs Film Festival, Chagrin Falls Film Festival, and the St. Tropez International Film Festival. The film landed a global distribution deal through Netflix. Rokah’s narrative short film, Black Hat, about a conflicted member of the Orthodox Jewish community, won several film festival awards in 2019, including the prestigious Iris Prize, and Best Film at the American Pavilion at Cannes Film Festival and Jury Award at The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Black Hat was an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival and landed a distribution deal with HBO Europe.
Executive Producer
Elliot Kotek
Elliot Kotek is the producer of Netlix Original Little Miss Sumo and the NBC Peacock Original Black Boys. A recognized leader in the power of purposeful content, Elliot is a member of the Television Academy and the Producers Guild of America, and his innovative branded documentaries for the likes of AARP, Accenture, Aflac, Campbell's, Hyundai & the UNDP, LEGO, New Balance, Whirlpool & Habitat for Humanity have racked up several billion media impressions and earned 7 Emmy nominations, 5 Cannes Lions, 4 SxSW Innovation Awards, 2 Clios, 2 Anthem Awards, multiple Webby honors, archiving at MoMA as well as recognition from the U.S. Congress and House of Representatives.
Executive Producer
Danny Cohen
Executive producer of the Academy Award-winning film Zone of Interest, Danny Cohen is the president of Access Entertainment, a division of Access Industries focused on investments across film, television, live entertainment, the creator economy, the visual arts, and gaming. Access Entertainment finances and produces films with leading actors and directors and Danny Cohen serves as Executive Producer on each of the films. Prior to joining Access in May 2016, Danny was director of BBC Television where he led the BBC's Television Networks and BBC Productions - Europe's largest television production group with a staff of 3,000. His role encompassed the greenlighting and production of all the BBC's comedy, drama, entertainment and unscripted programs. Danny also oversaw the BBC's film label, BBC Films and provided editorial leadership for the BBC's digital platform, the iPlayer. He was a BBC Board member.
Follow Me debuts at the Newport Beach Film Festival on October 18, 2026, with a second screening on October 20.
Follow Me is an official selection of the 2027 Miami Jewish Film Festival.
The film will also screen at the Streicher Cultural Center in Manhattan on January 27, 2027.
Producer
Julie Gray
Julie Gray is the producer of Follow Me and co-author of The True Adventures of Gidon Lev and Let’s Make Things Better. She also produced and narrated The True Adventures of Gidon Lev podcast series. Julie developed the strategy and created the content behind Gidon Lev’s social media presence, bringing his story, humor, and message of hope to an audience of more than 465,000 followers on TikTok and 85,000 on Instagram. She has spoken about Holocaust education, digital memory, and storytelling at Yad Vashem, the European Jewish Association, and Hebrew University, and taught storytelling at Warner Bros. Entertainment. Her writing has appeared in Moment Magazine, The Times of Israel, The Huffington Post, The Jewish Journal, the New York Post, Sanskrit Literary Journal, and MovieMaker Magazine. She writes This Israeli-American Life on Substack and is working on They Do Things Differently Here, a memoir about her life before and with Gidon.
Composer
Inbal Segev
Inbal Segev is “a cellist with something to say” (Gramophone). Combining rich tone and technical mastery with rare dedication and intelligence, she has appeared with orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Bamberg Symphony and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Katowice (NOSPR), collaborating with such prominent conductors as Marin Alsop, Stéphane Denève, Lorin Maazel, Cristian Măcelaru, Zubin Mehta and Edward Gardner. Committed to reinvigorating the cello repertoire, she has commissioned and premiered new cello concertos from Timo Andres, Anna Clyne, Avner Dorman, Fernando Otero, Dan Visconti and Victoria Poleva, whose concerto Segev looks forward to premiering with the Dallas Symphony and London Philharmonic orchestras in the 2023-24 season. Recorded with Alsop and the London Philharmonic for Avie Records, Segev’s 2020 premiere recording of Clyne’s new cello concerto, DANCE, was an instant success, topping the Amazon Classical Concertos chart; its opening movement was chosen as one of NPR Music’s “Favorite Songs of 2020,” receiving nine million listens on Spotify, and Segev has continued to tour extensively with the piece. At the start of the pandemic, she launched “20 for 2020,” a commissioning, recording and video project for 20 cutting-edge composers, including John Luther Adams, Viet Cuong, Angélica Negrón and others who she asked to create works in response to the unprecedented worldwide crisis and encourage creative recovery. Her previous discography includes acclaimed recordings of the Elgar Cello Concerto, Romantic cello works and Bach’s Cello Suites, while her popular YouTube masterclass series, Musings with Inbal Segev, has inspired a generation of cellists. A native of Israel, at 16 Segev was invited by Isaac Stern to continue her cello studies in the U.S., where she earned degrees from Yale University and the Juilliard School, before co-founding the Amerigo Trio with former New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and violist Karen Dreyfus. Segev started composing during the pandemic: her cello quartet, Behold, can be heard on her album 20 for 2020; her cello octet, B Natural, premiered at Yale in 2023; and her forthcoming string trio is scheduled to premiere in the 2025-26 season. Her cello was made by Francesco Ruggieri in 1673.