Israel’s controversial Oscar submission gets snubbed on the 2022 Academy shortlist
A still from the Israeli movie “Let It Be Morning.”
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — There was no holiday cheer for Israel’s filmmakers in the shortlists for the 2022 Academy Awards.
The country’s official submission for this year’s Best International Feature Oscar, “Let It Be Morning,” was not among the 15 entries that made the cut in the category, despite being helmed by a pedigreed director (Eran Kolirin, of “The Band’s Visit” fame) and attracting global attention for its all-Palestinian cast.
The movie, which won the Ophir Award (Israel’s equivalent to the Oscars) for best film for its depiction of life in Israel from a Palestinian perspective, generated controversy upon its debut at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Most of its Palestinian cast and crew did not attend the premiere, nor the Ophir awards ceremony, protesting the fact that the movie — based on a novel by the Arab Israeli author Sayed Kashua and financed primarily by Israeli producers — was being categorized as an Israeli film.
“Let It Be Morning” will be released in the United States in 2022.
In addition, a handful of high-profile Israeli documentaries missed out on the Best Documentary shortlist, including Maya Sarfaty’s “Love It Was Not,” about an unlikely romance between a Jewish prisoner of Auschwitz and an SS officer in the death camp, and Vanessa Lapa’s “Speer Goes To Hollywood,” about a Nazi architect’s attempts to reinvent himself after WWII. The latter had generated its own controversy for purportedly fictionalizing elements of key archival conversations.
The 94th Academy Awards will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on March 27, 2022.
A still from the Israeli movie “Let It Be Morning.”
—
The post Israel’s controversial Oscar submission gets snubbed on the 2022 Academy shortlist appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
