The Israeli Minister of Israeli culture, Miki Zohar, announced on Wednesday the freezing of the ophir prize ceremony, the Oscars Israeli, after the award of the best fiction film to Hay (The sea), a film that described as “propaleinian.”
With this award, the film directed by Shaï Carmeli-Pollak, a documentary filmmaker who, therefore, signs his first fictitious film, automatically becomes the Israeli candidate for Oscar 2026 for the best foreign film.
“After the Propalenia Hayam movie, which discredits our heroic soldiers while fighting us, won the Best Film award during the shameful Ophir 2025 ceremony, I decided to stop financing the ceremony with the money of Israeli citizens,” Zohar announced in a statement.
“From the 2026 budget, this miserable ceremony will no longer be funded by taxpayers’ money,” he added.
Five opir
The drama Hay He tells the trip of a 12 -year -old Palestinian child, who lives in Ramallah, in an occupied West Bank and wants to see the sea in Tel Aviv for the first time in his life.
The film won five Ophir on Tuesday night, including that of the best actor for the child’s lead role, Mohammad Ghazaoui, younger receiver of this award. Several filmmakers arrived in black dresses at the ceremony and called at the end of the war in Gaza.
“That this awarded film presents our heroic soldiers in a defamatory and false way while fighting and risking their lives to protect us, no one is surprised anymore,” said Mr. Zohar, a member of Likoud, the great right party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Muse Freedom of Expression
In response to this statement, the Israeli film and television academy affirmed its “commitment to film excellence, artistic freedom and freedom of expression.”
In recent years, Mr. Zohar has been criticized by Israeli cinema professionals for a series of measures that they perceive as an attempt to silence any dissident voice and freedom of expression.
In March, the minister described the assignment of an Oscar to the Israeli-Palestinian documentary There is no other land “Sad moment for the world of cinema.” This film edited by the Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham, deals with the Israeli occupation in the West Bank viewed by the inhabitants of a Palestinian village.
Source: BFM TV
