Israel’s culture minister, Miki Zohar, has announced that funding for the Ophirs, the country’s national film awards, would be cancelled after The Sea, a film about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, won the best feature film prize.
In a statement on X, translated by Israeli news media, Zohar said: “There is no greater slap in the face of Israeli citizens than the embarrassing and detached annual Ophir awards ceremony. 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.”
The Sea, which automatically becomes Israel’s entry for the best international film Oscar, was written and directed by Shai Carmeli-Pollak. It stars Muhammad Gazawi as Khaled, a Palestinian boy who goes on a school trip to Tel Aviv to visit the beach for the first time but is denied entry at the border and embarks on a dangerous journey to sneak into the country. Gazawi, 13, won the Ophir for best actor, while co-star Khalifa Natour won best supporting actor. The awards are voted for by members of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television.
It is not clear, however, if Zohar can carry through with his threat: according to the Jerusalem Post, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel is investigating whether the culture ministry has the jurisdiction to pull funding from the awards.
Zohar has a history of confronting Israel’s film industry: in February he introduced a bill to reform film funding by pushing government money towards commercially successful productions, and said that the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land was “sabotage against the state of Israel”.
Variety reported that The Sea’s Palestinian producer Baher Agbariya received the award with a plea for equality and tolerance, saying: “This film was born from love for humanity and cinema, and its message is one – the right of every child to live and dream in peace, without siege, without fear, and without war.” Protests against the war in Gaza were much in evidence at the ceremony, with participants wearing T-shirts bearing messages such as “a child is a child” and “end the war”.
Agbariya also thanked the Israel Film Fund for supporting the film.
Veteran director Uri Barbash, best known for the 1984 prison drama Beyond the Walls, was given a lifetime achievement award, and also called for an end to the war in his acceptance speech, saying. “It is our sacred duty to return all the kidnapped to the bosom of their families, and immediately, to end the damned war and replace the ‘divide and rule’ regime that declared war on Israeli society.”
Responding to Zohar’s statement, Assaf Amir, chair of Israeli Academy of Film and Television, 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.”
The controversy follows a pledge signed by over 3,000 international film industry figures to boycott Israeli film institutions they say are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”. Olivia Colman, Javier Bardem, Riz Ahmed and Emma Stone were among the high-profile actors and film-makers to put their name to the letter.
Representatives of the Israeli film industry called the boycott “deeply troubling”, with Nadav Ben Simon, chairman of the Israeli screenwriters’ guild, saying: “Over the years, we have also collaborated with Palestinian colleagues on films, series, and documentaries that seek to encourage dialogue, mutual understanding, peace and an end to violence … [Boycotts] do not advance the cause of peace. Instead, they harm precisely those who are committed to fostering dialogue and building bridges between peoples.”
Hollywood studio Paramount issued a statement on Saturday criticising the boycott, saying: “We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli film-makers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”