Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea, about a Palestinian boy, won Best Film at Israel’s Ophir Awards in a somber ceremony in Tel Aviv on Tuesday dominated by Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza as well as the hostage crisis.
Many attendees turned up dressed in black while all the acceptance speeches alluded either to the fate of Israeli hostages abducted in the Hamas October 7, 2023 terror attacks and, or the human toll of Israel’s subsequent military operation in the Gaza Strip.
The ceremony kicked off just hours after Israel launched a major ground offensive on Gaza City, with the overall death toll in the wider Gaza Strip now standing at more than 64,000 people.
Under its Best Film win, The Sea automatically becomes Israel‘s entry to the Best International Feature Film category of the 98th Academy Awards.
The film follows Khaled, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy living in the landlocked West Back on his way to visit the sea for the first time in his life, until at the checkpoint, the Israeli authorities deny his entry.
The film’s young star, 13-year-old Muhammad Gazawi, won Best Actor and made a plea in his acceptance speech for all children to be able “to live and dream without wars.”
Khalifa Natour won the Ophir Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Sea but did not attend the ceremony.
In a statement read on his behalf, he said: “Following the army’s entry into Gaza and the genocide that frightens me greatly, I cannot find words to describe the magnitude of the horror, and everything else becomes secondary to me. Even cinema and theater.”
Other frontrunners for Best Film include Nadav Lapid’s Yes, a biting satire critiquing the indifference of Israeli society in the face of bloodshed in Gaza, and Natali Braun’s Oxygen about a mother fighting to pull her son out of military service.
The storylines of all three films run counter to the politics of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
When the nominations were announced in August, Culture Minister Miki Zohar threatened to cut funding for the awards saying they were promoting Palestinian narratives over national interests.
Alongside Zohar’s posturing, Israel’s traditionally left-wing film industry has also become the target of a boycott campaign led by high-profile Hollywood figures in protest at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
In a fiery speech as he accepted a Lifetime Achievement Ophir, veteran director Uri Barbash railed against Netanyahu’s government, Zohar’s criticism of the film industry and the boycott.
Alluding to his 1984 Oscar-nominated drama Beyond the Walls in which Israeli and Palestinian prisoners in a high security jail unite against a corrupt warden, he said: “We have chosen, we will strike and protest, and we will create, all of us together, Jews and Arabs, religious and secular.”
“All of us together will eradicate the evil from our beloved land. The sanctity of life, the preservation of life, and human dignity must have no ethnic or geographical boundaries. It is our sacred duty to bring all the hostages back to their families. Immediately. To end the accursed war and replace the ‘divide and rule’ regime that has declared war on Israeli society!”
Director Gan de Lange used her acceptance speech for Best Animation for A Bird’s Wish to read out all the names of the hostages still in Gaza, whether they are known to be dead, or believed to be alive.
Hit-making trio Zion Baruch, Asi Israelof, and Shalom Michaelshwilli who were given a special prize marking the commercial successes of their hits Saving Shuli and Saving Shuli-San dedicated their award to brothers Gali and Zivi Berman. The twins, who were lighting engineers on their films, were also abducted on September 7.
Having missed the top prize, Lapid’s Yes took Best Soundtrack and Editing instead, whole Oxygen left empty-handed.
A surprise breakout winner of the evening, was Eti Tsiko’s Nandauri which won Best Director, while Neta Riskin clinched Best Actress, for her performance in the film as an Israeli lawyer forced to confront her past when she travels to the Georgia to retrieve an abandoned boy. The drama also won Best Makeup, Costume Design and Cinematography.
Best Documentary went to Tom Shoval’s Letter To David about David Cunio, who co-starred in the director’s first feature Youth, and then a decade later was kidnapped in the October 7 attack. He is still believed to be alive somewhere in Gaza.
“This is an unfinished film, it will remain open until David returns. This damned war must end,” said Shoval in his acceptance speech.