The nominees for the 21st Ophir Awards, the prizes of the Israel Academy for
Film and Television also known as the Israeli Oscars, were announced yesterday
at a press conference in Tel Aviv.
Nir Bergman’s
Intimate Grammar, a
drama based on a novel by David Grossman, led the nominations, following its win
for Best Feature at the Jerusalem Film Festival earlier this month. The other
nominees were Avi Nesher’s
Once I Was, which tells the story of a teen working
for a matchmaker; Doron Tsabari’s quasi-documentary about the Israel
Broadcasting Authority,
Revolution 101; Guy Nativ’s
The Flood, about how a
family is thrown into turmoil when its oldest son, who is autistic, returns home
from an institution; and Eran Riklis’s
The Human Resources Manager, based on an
A. B. Yehoshua novel.
The awards have drawn a great deal of attention in
recent years, since the film that wins the Best Picture Ophir becomes Israel’s
candidate to receive a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award.
During the past three years, three Israeli films were nominated in this category
– Beaufort, Waltz with Bashir, and Ajami – but none won the
Oscar.
Eighteen feature films and 56 documentaries were eligible for
Ophir nominations this year.
In the Best Director category, the nominees
mostly matched the films nominated for Best Picture, with the exception
of Avi
Nesher and Guy Nativ, who did not receive nominations.
In their places
were Dover Kosashvili, the director of army drama Infiltration, and
actor Moshe
Ivgy, who directed
And On the Third Day. This was a snub for Nesher in
particular, whose Once I Was is a runaway critical and commercial
success, but
not an unexpected one. Nesher’s previous two films,
Turn Left at the End
of the
World (2004) and
The Secrets (2007) received neither Best Picture nor
Best
Director nominations in spite of their success.
Still, the star of Once I
Was, Adir Miller, received a Best Actor nomination, along with Mark
Evanir, for
his role in
The Human Resources Manager; Roi Alsberg (
Intimate Grammar);
Yossi
Pollack (
The X Explosion); and Yoav Rothman (
The Flood).
The Best Actress
nominees are Orly Zilbersatz, for
Intimate Grammar; Maya Dagan, for
Once
I Was;
Hila Fledman, for
And On the Third Day; Liron Ben- Shalosh, for
Maya;
and Ronit
Elkabetz, for
The Flood.
The prizes will be awarded at a ceremony in
September.