Gideon "Gidi" Raff (Hebrew: גדעון "גידי" רף; born 10 September 1972) is an Israeli film and television director, screenwriter, and writer.

His father is Eitan Raff, who served as Accountant General in the Israeli Ministry of Finance, was Chairman of the Board of Bank Leumi[2][3] and, as of August 2017[update], was under criminal investigation for having aided US customers in tax evasion.

[2] Raff made his feature-length directorial debut in 2007 with The Killing Floor, a psychological thriller (which he also co-wrote and co-produced; the film's executive producers were Doug Liman and Avi Arad).

[13][16][17] Even before filming of Prisoners of War began, the rights to develop an American version of the series had been sold to 20th Century Fox Television based on the strength of the script alone.

[18] This resulted in the acclaimed series Homeland, developed by former 24 producers and writers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa in cooperation with Raff, and broadcast on cable channel Showtime in the autumn of 2011.

[16][19] In addition to translating the original scripts from Hebrew into English, Raff acted as an executive producer on the US show and co-wrote the pilot episode.

[24][25][26] Film director Ang Lee had agreed to direct the pilot (in his first foray into television) but withdrew from the project in May 2013 for personal reasons and was replaced by David Yates.

[30] In November 2013 Raff and Heroes creator Tim Kring finalised a six-episode deal with USA Network for Dig, an archaeological thriller about an American FBI agent stationed in Jerusalem.

[citation needed] In 2012, as part of a PETA campaign, Raff wrote to both U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence to protest against use of live animals to train army doctors in battlefield surgery and proposed, with his partner, to become human guinea pigs, to facilitate the learning of surgeons.