Ophirs offer up surprises

'Waltz with Bashir' takes six awards and will become Israel's Oscar submission.

By HANNAH BROWN
Waltz with Bashir good 88 248 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Waltz with Bashir good 88 248
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Ari Folman's animated documentary about the first Lebanon War, Waltz with Bashir, was the surprise winner at the Ophir Awards, the prizes of the Israeli Film Academy, which were awarded in a ceremony on Tuesday night at the Opera House in Tel Aviv. Waltz with Bashir, which was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival this year, won six awards in all, including Best Picture and Best Director and Best Screenplay for Folman. Because of its Best Picture win, it will become Israel's official selection to be considered for a nomination in the Oscars' Best Foreign Language Film category. Folman dedicated his award to the "eight babies born to the filmmakers during the four years of working on this film" and said that he hoped when these children were old enough to see the movie, "it will have nothing to do with their lives and will be just another animated film." Seeing Folman's joy and that of his crew livened up a ceremony distinguished by its slick professionalism and leaden pacing. The film expected to win the most awards, Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz's Seven Days, took prizes only for Best Supporting Actress (Evelin Hagoel, the perkiest winner of the night) and cinematography. The year's big winner at the box office, Reshef Levy's Lost Islands, won awards for Best Actor (Michael Moshonov, the son of actor Moni Moshonov) and Best Supporting Actor (Shmil Ben-Ari). The surprise winner in the Best Actress category was Hiam Abbass for her performance as a Palestinian widow in Eran Ricklis's Lemon Tree. The leads from Seven Days, codirector Ronit Elkabetz and her costar Hana Azoulay-Hasfari were the favorites in this category. Elkabetz is known for her outlandish awards-show outfits, but she was positively restrained Tuesday night in a simple white dress, and didn't take the stage once. No one from Lemon Tree was there at all, so the bewildered presenters were left to accept the award themselves. Ran Tal's Children of the Sun, a look at child-rearing on the kibbutzim, won in the very competitive Best Documentary category. The Ophir Awards, like the Israeli film industry, have come a long way in the past 10 years. While in the past many winners looked as if they had slept in their clothes, this year nearly everyone was the height of chic and there were no real fashion disasters (although Oshri Cohen would be well advised to tuck in his shirt). But besides taking care of their appearances, everyone was in harmony on another point: That the Finance Ministry should not go through with the planned cuts in the film-subsidies budget (the cuts would reduce the budget by over 50 percent). Almost every winner read a short statement noting Israel's recent accomplishments in the film world since the so-called Movie Law that increased subsidies to films was enacted in 2001. Marek Rosenbaum, the chairman of the Israeli Academy, drew cheers when he said, "We won't let the finance minister destroy the Israeli film industry."