Ofure Akhigbe
Israel’s Culture Minister, Miki Zohar, on Tuesday, 16 September 2025, threatened to withdraw government funding for the country’s national film awards after The Sea, a drama about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, won best film at the Ophir Awards, Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars.
The film, directed by Baher Agbariya, follows Khaled, a boy from the occupied West Bank who longs to see the sea in Tel Aviv. Stopped at an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoint during a school trip, Khaled sneaks into Israel while his father—an undocumented labourer—searches for him.
Thirteen-year-old Muhammad Gazawi, who plays Khaled, became the youngest winner in Ophir history when he took home the best actor award.
In his acceptance speech, producer Agbariya said the film represented “every child’s right to live in peace, a basic right we will not give up on.”
But Culture Minister Zohar denounced the awards ceremony, calling it “embarrassing and detached.” Writing on X on Tuesday, he added: “There is no greater slap in the face of Israeli citizens… Under my watch, Israeli citizens will not pay from their pockets for a ceremony that spits in the faces of our heroic soldiers.”
By winning best film, The Sea automatically becomes Israel’s submission for the international film category at next year’s Oscars. Local media have noted it is unclear whether Zohar has the authority to strip funding from the awards.
Assaf Amir, chair of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, defended the jury’s decision, saying: “As the never-ending war in Gaza takes a terrible toll in death and destruction, the ability to see the ‘other’ gives small hope. The selection of The Sea is a powerful and resounding response.”
The controversy comes as Israel continues to face mounting criticism from the global film industry. Earlier this year, thousands of Hollywood professionals signed a pledge not to work with Israeli institutions accused of being “implicated in genocide.”
Israel launched its war in Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage. Since then, at least 65,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes, almost half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Also on Tuesday, a United Nations commission of inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza—an allegation the Israeli foreign ministry rejected as “distorted and false.”