Close Quarters: Shmulik (Yoav Donat, left) and Jamil (Zohar Strauss, right) in a tense moment in an Israeli tank in Samuel Maoz?s ?Lebanon.? Image by CELLULOID DREAMS

In the 60 years since the Venice Film Festival first bestowed its Golden Lion award, no Israeli film has ever won — until now. On Sept. 12, filmmaker Samuel Maoz received the top prize for his film, “Lebanon,” which focuses on the 1982 Lebanon war.

Few writers and directors get to fully experience what they create on screen, but Maoz, who wrote and directed “Lebanon,” was a trained gunner for a tank crew in the Israeli Defense Forces. He knows firsthand the emotion and destruction of war. Using his own experience as inspiration, Maoz tells the story of four soldiers who operate a tank in a bombarded town and find themselves fighting for their lives in one of the most brutal wars in Israeli history.

“I wrote Lebanon straight from my gut,” said Maoz. He wasn’t interested, he said, in such scripting conventions as introductions, character backgrounds and dramatic structure. “What remained fresh and bleeding was the emotional memory,” he said. “I wrote what I felt.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The film follows a year after the animated Israeli feature “Waltz With Bashir,” Ari Folman’s dark portrayal of his experience coping with the Lebanon war. The film won a Golden Globe Award.

Maoz claimed the coveted prize, an upset in a festival where both George Clooney and Michael Moore were favored. The Golden Lion has been awarded to such major films as “The Battle of Algiers,” “Gloria” and more recently, “The Wrestler.”

“Lebanon” will be screened at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 1 and 2.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount