Against all odds, Meyer Levinson-Blount, an Israeli director, will be attending the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night, because his student film, Butcher’s Stain, is nominated for an Oscar in the Best Live Action Short category.
“I couldn’t have known that any of this was going to happen when I started making the movie,” he said, in an interview from Los Angeles. “This is how success is: it hits you from the most unexpected place. We were sending the film to festivals, and it wasn’t getting into any. We were about to move on.”
But then in 2025, Butcher’s Stain, which was produced by Oron Caspi and which also received support from the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University, where Levinson-Blount is studying for a BFA, won a Student Academy Award. Getting nominated for a student award made the film eligible for the regular Academy Awards, and it was shortlisted and nominated for an Oscar.
“I wouldn’t have expected that it would happen this way,” he said, adding that, “It’s really an honor to represent my film school at the Oscars. The cast and crew of the film are thrilled, he said. “It’s a student film, and it wouldn’t have happened without a lot of teamwork.”
Butcher’s Stain tells a moving story of Samir (Omar Sameer), a Palestinian butcher working at an Israeli supermarket, who is accused of tearing down the Israeli hostage posters in the break room. After the accusation, Samir sets out to prove his innocence in order to keep the job he desperately needs.
Screening the film in the US
Levinson-Blount, who moved to Israel with his family at the age of 12, said that he has been enjoying the run-up to the Academy Awards ceremony, which includes many events, such as the Nominees Luncheon, where all the nominated filmmakers and actors get a chance to schmooze.
“I met Paul Thomas Anderson [the director of One Battle After Another], and he is my all-time favorite director, so that was amazing!” he said.
He has also screened the film for many audiences in the US. “I have had so many great opportunities to meet people and speak about my film, and that’s really what it’s all about. Being able to celebrate art and making connections… My experience [in the US] has only been positive; it’s been eye-opening to meet so many people who have so many different opinions of what’s going on. The beauty of the film is that it doesn’t answer any questions; it gives the audience the opportunity to have a dialogue about it afterwards, and having that conversation with the audience has been the best part of this journey,” he said.
He said he got the idea for Butcher’s Stain when he was working at a supermarket after October 7. “I witnessed the national trauma and the national crisis that everyone was going through, and at the same time, I saw that turn into racism and discrimination against Arab Israelis. This wasn’t everyone, of course, but it was happening. I wanted to capture that complexity. The goal wasn’t educating. The goal wasn’t convincing anyone of anything. The goal was to immerse the viewer in an experience they wouldn’t necessarily know about.”
He noted that, “The supermarket is an interesting place because it has people of all types of backgrounds. It has Ethiopians, Russians, Eritreans, Arabs, Jews, and Christians. Everyone.” But after October 7, he felt an increase in workplace tension. “People became silent about certain issues. Not in a political way, but in a human way. I wanted to initiate a conversation through the movie so we could look each other in the eye again and talk about these things.”
Work in the supermarket was grueling, with many employees putting in 10-hour shifts for minimum wage, and he was upset when he noticed that the Arab workers faced discrimination. “It broke my heart,” he said. “When you’re working such long hours, there isn’t much else you can do outside work, and inside work, your social life is important. And if your life at work becomes toxic, it really becomes hard.”
He said he is considering spending some time in the US, “To try to develop my career a little bit more. But I do love writing and directing things that happen in Israel, and just because I think that a lot of the different conflicts that we have in our society are intriguing, and I’m invested and connected to them emotionally. It’s where my family and I live and where I grew up. I think I sort of have that contradiction where I’m not American enough to be American, and I’m not Israeli enough to be Israeli.”
He said he is working on a new film, also about the Israeli-Palestinian project. “I’m emotionally invested in the fact that our society is so broken and divided, and the films that I make are films that, I hope, will bring people together more and build bridges.”