Keshet and Beaufort

In 2005 he left print media and began working in television.^[3] From 2006 until 2009, Leshem was head of content and programming for Keshet Broadcasting. He oversaw development and production for Israeli TV series such as Arab Labor, the A-word, Traffic Light,^[4] and Homeland, an adaptation of his show Prisoners of War.^[4]

As a novelist he won the prestigious annual literary award the Sapir Prize for Literature in 2006^[1] for his debut novel Beaufort,^[5][6] which was published in 2006 in Hebrew.^[6] The story is written as the diary of a young army officers, when IDF soldiers were protecting Beaufort Castle in Southern Lebanon b.^[6] Beaufort was on the Israel bestseller list for 2 years, sold 120,000 copies in Israel, was distributed in 22 countries,^[7] and was translated into more than 20 languages. The film version of Beaufort,^[7] which Leshem co-wrote,^[8] was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,^[9] and won the Berlin International Film Festival Silver Bear for Best Director.^[10]

Leshem's second book The Underground Bazaar also reached the bestseller list and was translated into numerous languages.

Executive producing and co-writing

Leshem created and co-wrote the drama series The Gordin Cell,^[8] which received 11 nominations for the Israeli Academy of Film and Television awards in 2011. The TV series was adapted by NBC as Allegiance.^[4] In 2014, he was commissioned to develop the script for Crater Lake.^[11]

Furthermore, Leshem co-created and co-wrote the series Euphoria,^[8] for Hot (2012). In 2018, he joined the American production of Euphoria as an executive producer.^[12] It was released on HBO.^[8]

He and Amit Cohen struck a long-term development deal with Red Arrow Studios International in 2018, preparing to create a new scripted drama label.^[13]

The Israeli film Incitement by Yaron Zilberman, which Leshem co-wrote, premiered at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival. The film received 10 nominations for the Israeli Academy of Film and Television awards. He served as a story editor for the series Beauty and the Baker. Alongside his long-time writing partner, Amit Cohen, Leshem co-wrote and co-created the Syrian Civil War drama No Man's Land, an American-French co-production, which Hulu and Arte ordered straight to series in spring 2019.

In the summer of 2019, production began on Israel's Valley of Tears, an 8-part mini-series set in the Yom Kippur War, which Leshem co-created with Cohen, Daniel Amsel, Yaron Zilberman, Gal Zaid, and Izhar Has-Lev.^[14] It was picked up by HBO in 2020^[15] and released as the "biggest-budget TV drama series" in Israel.^[16]

In 2019, Leshem published in Israel his novel When we were beautiful (Hebrew: יפים כמו שהיינו), and announced it will be translated to English by Jessica Cohen.

In 2019, he signed with Anonymous Content along with his frequent co-writer Amit Cohen, with whom he'd recently worked on the Hulu series Fertile Crescent, about the Syrian Civil War starring James Purefoy.^[8] Leshem, Cohen, and Xabi Molia wrote the eight episodes of Fertile Crescent.^[17] In November 2020, he was again partnering with WestEnd Films and Cohen on a new TV thriller, along with the company Anton.^[18]

Television

Film

As development executive

• Arab Labor (2007–2011)
• Ramzor (Traffic light) (2008–2013)
• Prisoners of War (2010–2012)
• the A-word (2010–2014)
• Polishuk (2010)