Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar has announced he is pulling state funding for the country’s Ophir Awards after drama The Sea, which focuses on the struggles of a Palestinian boy living under occupation in the West Bank, won the top prize.
Under Israel’s protocol, the winner of the Best Film Ophir is automatically put forward as Israel’s Oscar candidate.
The production spearheaded by Israeli filmmaker Shai Carmeli-Pollak and Palestinian producer Bahaer Agbarian, follows Khaled, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy living in the landlocked West Bank on his way to visit the sea for the first time in his life, until at the checkpoint, the Israeli authorities deny his entry.
Determined to fulfil his dream, he sneaks into Israel and embarks on a dangerous journey to the coast, dodging checkpoint, military and police..
The Israeli Culture Ministry released a statement on Wednesday morning in which Zohar called the win “disgraceful”, saying that the film portrays Israeli soldiers in a negative light.
“There is no greater slap in the face of Israeli citizens than the embarrassing and detached annual Ophir Awards ceremony,” read the statement reported by Israeli media.
“Starting with the 2026 budget, this pathetic ceremony will no longer be funded by taxpayers’ money. Under my watch, Israeli citizens will not pay from their pockets for a ceremony that spits in the faces of our heroic soldiers.”
Zohar’s defunding threat is not unexpected. The minister previously railed against the awards in August when the nominations were first announced and other frontrunners alongside The Sea included Nadav Lapid’s Yes and Natali Braun’s Oxygen.
The storylines of all three favorites ran counter to the politics of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and military campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank.
Lapid’s Yes is biting satire critiquing Israeli society against the backdrop of the ongoing military campaign in Gaza, while Natali Braun’s Oxygen about a mother fighting to pull her son out of military service.
It remains to be seen whether Zohar has the authority to pull Ophir funding with Israel’s Association for Civil Rights saying it would challenge any such move in the courts.
Zohar’s anger at the Ophirs followed an somber yet emotional ceremony in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening dominated by Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza as well as the hostage crisis. It unfolded just hours after the country embarked on a major ground offensive on Gaza City.
In the backdrop, Israel’s traditionally left-wing film industry is also grappling with the implications of a boycott campaign led by high-profile Hollywood figures in protest at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The Sea also won Best Actor for its young star, 13-year-old Muhammad Gazawi, and Best Supporting Actor for Khalifa Natour.
Gazawi used his acceptance speech to make a plea for all children to be able “to live and dream without wars.”
Natour did not attend but said in a statement read on his behalf: “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.”
Assaf Amir, Chairman of the Israeli Film Academy, congratulated Pollak and Agbariya for their “powerful and moving work”.
“Israeli cinema once again demonstrates its relevance and ability to respond to complex and painful realities. This is a film full of empathy—for all human beings. Especially in the harsh reality we live in, as the never-ending war in Gaza takes a terrible toll in death and destruction, the ability to see the ‘other,’ even if he is not of your own people, gives me small hope,” he said.
“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. I am proud that an Arabic-language film, born of collaboration between Jewish and Palestinian Israelis, will represent Israel in the Oscar competition.”
Launched in 1990, the Ophir Awards are Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars. They are named after Israeli actor Shaike Ophir and voted on by the 1,100 members of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television.
The academy members have a history of getting behind works for the Best Film and Oscar entry honor that are critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and wider military activities.
2021 entry Let It Be Morning by Eran Kolirin was adapted from Palestinian writer Sayed Kashua’s eponymous novel.
Alex Bakri starred as an urbane Palestinian man with Israeli citizenship, who is unable to return to his life and work in Jerusalem when his home village is cut off by a military blockade while he is attending a wedding.
Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot, which was the last Israeli film to make it onto the shortlist in 2017, explored the last trauma of serving in the Israeli army and its careless killing of Palestinians, while Ari Folman’s animated 2008 nominee Waltz with Bashir delved into the horror of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in the 1982 Lebanon War.
