Israel did not advance to the shortlist for international films at this year's Oscars, though films that relate to Israel did. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday released the shortlists in 12 categories ahead of the 98th Academy Awards ceremony, set to take place on March 16.
The Israeli film The Sea, which won this year’s Ophir Award, did not make the shortlist for best international feature film and is therefore out of the running. By contrast, Palestine 36, the Palestinian submission, advanced to the shortlist.
The Sea follows Khaled, a Palestinian boy from a village near Ramallah who joins a school trip to the seashore. When the bus reaches an IDF checkpoint, it becomes clear that he does not have a permit to cross, but he is determined to reach the sea nonetheless. After the film won the top prize at the Ophir Awards, Culture Minister Miki Zohar decided to halt funding to the Israeli Academy and announced the creation of a new awards ceremony as part of a film reform. According to the announcement, the new ceremony would serve as a state-backed alternative to the Ophir Awards, which it said “do not represent the Israeli public but rather provide a platform for extreme and delusional voices.”
Palestine 36, directed by Annemarie Jacir, is a period drama set in 1936 that follows the Arab revolt against British rule. Filming was initially planned in the Palestinian Authority but was moved to Jordan following the October 7 Hamas massacre. The film features several Hollywood actors, including Jeremy Irons, Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones) and Robert Aramayo (The Rings of Power), alongside Saleh Bakri, Hiam Abbass, Yasmine Al Massri and Kamel El Basha. It is a co-production involving Palestine, Britain, France, Denmark, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Also competing in the category are submissions from Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Iraq and Jordan, as well as Tunisia’s entry, The Voice of Hind Rajab. That film centers on the story of a five-year-old girl from Gaza who became a symbol after being trapped in a car with the bodies of her family, pleading for rescue before being killed in a bombardment.
Jordan’s submission, All That’s Left of You, directed by Cherien Dabis, also addresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, focusing on the psychological and physical scars carried by three generations of a Palestinian family. Like the Palestinian entry, filming was originally planned in Israel but was moved to Cyprus due to the war, with the production recreating landscapes from 1948 to the present.
In the documentary feature category, the American film Holding Liat, directed by Brandon Kramer, did make the shortlist. The documentary tells the story of Liat Atzili, a civics and history teacher who was kidnapped to Gaza on October 7 and returned to Israel in the first hostage deal about two months later, only to learn that her husband, Aviv, had been murdered by Hamas terrorists.
Also shortlisted in the documentary category is Coexistence, My Ass!, which focuses on Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi and her struggle for peace and coexistence. The film is a U.S.-French co-production led by Israeli filmmaker Rachel Leah Jones, together with Palestinian American filmmaker Rabab Haj Yahya.