Oscars international shortlist features 4 films on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Historical epic ‘Palestine 36,’ about Mandate-era revolt, and ‘Voice of Hind Rajab,’ about Gazan girl killed during war, up for top honors; film on Israeli hostage nominated for Best Documentary

Four films related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict made Oscar shortlists this year, while another — Israeli-made “The Sea,” about a Palestinian boy from the West Bank trying to travel to the ocean for the first time — was left in the cold.

“Palestine 36,” a controversial historical drama about the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt against the British mandate government, was selected as the Palestinian entry for the Best International Feature Film.

The two-hour epic follows a young boy from the countryside who gets a job in Jerusalem for a centrist newspaper, and is radicalized by the attitude of the British colonial administration. With Jewish immigration from Europe increasing and Palestinian villagers concerned about further loss of land, Arab support for armed revolt against the British surges. The film details the British crackdown launched to contain the violence.

The film was shot primarily in Jordan and the West Bank in the year immediately following the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

It has advertised itself as “the only film shot in Palestine in the last two years.”

It received a 20-minute standing ovation at the Toronto Film Festival.

Also on the international shortlist is Tunisia’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which tells the story of a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed amid the current Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

The film, which dramatizes the effort by Palestinian Red Crescent dispatchers in the central West Bank to send Rajab assistance within Gaza, uses real audio from the girl’s phone call, in which she — surrounded by dead family members — pleads for help.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society has accused Israel of deliberately targeting an ambulance it sent to rescue Rajab.

Israel has rejected that claim, saying a probe found there were no Israeli troops present in the vicinity of the vehicle where Rajab’s body was found, nor was there a need for specific coordination of the ambulance to pick her up.

A Washington Post report published after the IDF’s statement found that Israeli armored vehicles were, in fact, operating in the area at the time, and that the gunfire heard in the Red Crescent recordings was consistent with IDF weapons.

One film that did not make it onto an Oscars shortlist was “The Sea,” a Hebrew and Arabic-language drama written and directed by Israeli Shai Carmeli-Pollak.

The movie, which premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival, won Best Film at the Ophir Awards — considered Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars — and was Israel’s own entry into the best international film category for the US competition.

The film’s win earlier this year prompted the government to say it would halt funding to the Ophir Awards, announcing an alternative award ceremony for films “that tell our story.”

“The Sea” follows 12-year-old Khaled’s journey to reach the sea for the first time —  a challenge given the requirement that Palestinians from the West Bank obtain entry permits to Israel — after soldiers prevent him from going to Israel during a school trip.

In the movie, Khaled is turned away at a checkpoint while the rest of his class continues on a field trip to the ocean. Disappointed, he resolves to make it to the sea on his own. The film follows his journey, as well as that of his father, who goes chasing after his son when he realizes the latter has gone missing.

The Oscars’ Best Documentary category contains two Israeli entries this year.

One, “Holding Liat,” follows the fight to secure the release of Liat Beinin Atzili, a US-born Israeli who was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023, and held captive in Gaza for almost two months.

Atzili, a tour guide at Israel’s national Holocaust museum, was freed on November 29, 2023, under a temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and the United States between Hamas and Israel. Her husband Aviv was murdered on October 7.

The other Israeli film in the documentary category, “Coexistence, My Ass!”, follows Israeli activist-comedian Noam Shuster as she crafts a one-woman show about her experience growing up in the Neve Shalom peace village in Israel.

Founded in 1969 by Bruno Hussar, a Christian monk who was born a Jew in Egypt, Neve Shalom aims to foster dialogue between Jews and Arabs. A few dozen Jewish and Arab families live in the village. Its school uses both Arabic and Hebrew as languages of instruction.

The entry, which was filmed in 2019-2024, includes Shuster’s experience during the period of the Hamas terror onslaught and the start of the subsequent war.