Israel’s culture minister says he will eliminate funding to the country’s version of the Oscars after a drama about a Palestinian boy won the top prize on Tuesday.
“The Sea” won the Ophir Award for best film during a ceremony in Tel Aviv where speakers condemned the ongoing war in Gaza and lamented the growing Hollywood boycott against Israeli film institutions. The Arabic-language drama becomes Israel’s automatic best international feature entry to next year’s Academy Awards.
It was produced with support from the Israel Film Fund, a public fund that is required to support artists without regard to their politics. A spokesperson for Film Workers for Palestine, the group behind the new boycott, told Variety this week that the Israel Film Fund meets its threshold for complicity.
The group’s pledge, which has drawn more than 4,500 signatures, names the Jerusalem Film Festival, where “The Sea” premiered in August, as among the institutions to boycott. It does not specifically name the Ophir Awards, but they have long benefitted from government funding.
Now, Culture Minister Miki Zohar says he will cut the Ophirs off starting next year, saying in a statement that the winning film “defames our heroic soldiers while they fight to protect us” and calling the awards ceremony “shameful.”
Speeches at the awards ceremony reportedly condemned the war, called attention to the Israeli hostages being held in Gaza and criticized both Zohar and the Hollywood boycott. One, a Palestinian Israeli star of “The Sea,” said via a written statement read aloud that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“During my tenure, the citizens of Israel will not pay out of their pockets for a disgraceful ceremony that spits on the heroic IDF soldiers,” Zohar said.
Directed by Shai Carmeli-Pollak, it tells the story of a boy from the West Bank who is denied a permit to visit Tel Aviv with his classmates and invites danger by setting out on his own instead. In his acceptance speech for best screenplay, Carmeli-Pollak read aloud a letter from a friend in Gaza who described going without food.
The best actor Ophir went to the movie’s 13-year-old star, Muhammad Gazawi, who said at the ceremony, “I wish for all the children of the world, everywhere, to have the same opportunity – to live and dream without wars.”
The festival’s director, Assaf Amir, said in a statement that he was pleased that “The Sea” would represent Israel at the Oscars, where no Israeli film has ever won best international feature. (Last year’s best documentary award went to “No Other Land,” a joint Israeli-Palestinian production about Israel’s treatment of West Bank Palestinians that also ignited scorn from Israeli government officials; this year’s documentary Ophir winner, “Letter to David,” is about the hostage David Cunio, himself a past film worker.)
“In the face of the Israeli government’s attacks on Israeli cinema and culture, and the calls from parts of the international film community to boycott us, the selection of ‘The Sea’ is a powerful and resounding response,” Amir said. “I am proud that an Arabic-language film, born of collaboration between Jewish and Palestinian Israelis, will represent Israel in the Oscar competition.”
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