Nominees reverse decision to boycott culture minister’s alternate film awards

Several leading film professionals who withdrew their films from Culture Minister Miki Zohar’s new alternative awards ceremony have agreed to reverse their decision and take part in the Tuesday event, the group said in a statement Sunday.

Zohar set up the alternative ceremony to the Ophir Awards and threatened to cut funding from the industry over prizes handed out to films accused of being pro-Palestinian and casting the IDF in a negative light.

The eight nominees — director Erez Tadmor, actresses Irit Kaplan and Nur Fibak, cinematographer Amit Yasur, screenwriter Mindi Ehrlich, screenwriter Yoav Shutan-Goshen, and editors Einat Glazer-Zarhin and Ilana Reina — said they were convinced by senior producer and Israel Prize laureate Moshe Edery to reconsider their intended boycott of Zohar’s event.

Edery promised to work with the culture minister to ensure continued funding for the film industry.

“Out of genuine concern for the future of Israeli cinema, and following conversations with producer Moshe Edery who promised us that he is personally working with the culture minister to regulate budgets for 2025 and 2026… we have decided to heed Mr. Edery’s appeals to return to the nominations we withdrew and to the Culture Ministry’s film awards ceremony,” said the eight nominees in a joint statement.

Tadmor told the Walla news site that Edery was in direct negotiations with the culture minister and intended to restore all the industry funding the minister was threatening to cancel.

Edery confirmed the film professionals’ statement, adding, “We will continue to act together for the benefit of the future of Israeli cinema.”

The nominees’ reversal followed Zohar’s threat to cut off all state funding to the film industry amid an ongoing spat over his attempt to stage an alternate movie awards ceremony.

Zohar set up the alternative awards ostensibly in protest of the prizes handed out at this year’s Ophir Awards, which are run by the Israeli Academy of Film and decide Israel’s Oscar submission each year.

The minister was outraged after the top Ophir award was given to the film “The Sea,” which tells the story of a Palestinian boy and which Zohar said portrayed the IDF in a negative light. The film was submitted to the Oscars for consideration as best foreign film but did not make the shortlist.

Zohar said in a statement that the nominees’ decision to participate in the ceremony is “the right one.”

“This is a state ceremony, not a political one, and it reflects the love of the Israeli public,” he said.

In response, the Israeli Academy of Film and Television said the country’s film industry unions support their members in whatever decision they make.

“We hope the minister will stand by the commitments he gave to Israel Prize laureate Moshe Edery, our colleague,” the academy said.