Israel to Select ‘The Sea’ as Best International Film Submission for 98th Oscars

As more countries select their picks for Best International Feature Film to submit for the 98th Academy Awards, The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Israel has entered The Sea as its contender for this year’s Oscars.

Written and directed by Shai Carmeli-Pollak, the film tells the story of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who risks his life to visit the beach for the first time in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is turned back at a military checkpoint while on a school trip, and sets off on his own to see the sea for the first time in his life.

While the movie has received thirteen nominations at the Israeli Film Awards, including Best Film, its submission arrives at around the same time when over 1,300 creatives working within Hollywood, including Mark Ruffalo, Olivia Colman, Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton, Emma Stone, Ayo Edebiri, and Riz Ahmed, are calling for a boycott of all Israeli film institutions due to the ongoing war in Gaza.

The last Israeli-made film to secure a nomination at the Academy Awards was 2010’s Footnote, directed by Joseph Cedar. This year, the documentary No Other Land, co-directed by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian activists, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. The film documented the invasion of a Palestinian community in the West Bank by Israeli forces. It was lauded by critics and audiences worldwide, despite never securing domestic distribution in the United States.

The first shortlist of 15 films in contention for the International Feature Oscar will be announced on December 15, followed by the nominations on January 22.

Source: THR