Israel’s Culture Minister Miki Zohar has said the government will freeze funding for the country’s top film awards after the prize for best picture went to a film he described as "pro-Palestinian."
The Ophir awards, Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars, gave its 2025 best film prize to Hayam, a story about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from the occupied West Bank who dreams of travelling to Tel Aviv to see the sea.
The film, directed by Shai Carmeli-Pollak, also won five other awards, including best actor for Mohammad Ghazaoui, making him the youngest-ever recipient.
Winning the best film award automatically qualifies Hayam as Israel’s submission to next year’s Academy Awards in the international feature category.
"After the pro-Palestinian film Hayam, which discredits our heroic soldiers as they fight to protect us, won the Best Film award at the shameful Ophir 2025 ceremony, I decided to stop funding the ceremony with Israeli citizens' money," Zohar said in a statement, adding the funding cut will take effect next year.
At the awards ceremony, several artists dressed in black and called for an end to the carnage in Gaza.
‘Artistic freedom’
Zohar, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, accused the film of defaming Israeli forces.
"That this award-winning film portrays our heroic soldiers in a defamatory and false manner as they fight and risk their lives to protect us no longer surprises anyone," he said.
The Israeli Academy of Film and Television, which organises the Ophir awards, defended its decision and reaffirmed its "commitment to cinematic excellence, artistic freedom and freedom of expression."
This is not the first time Zohar has criticised Israeli films with Palestinian themes. In March, he called the Academy Award given to the Israeli-Palestinian documentary No Other Land a "sad moment for the world of cinema."
The documentary, co-directed by Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham, documents the displacement of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta by Israeli forces and settlers.
