EXCLUSIVE: Menemsha Movies has taken on US distribution rights to Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea, Israel’s submission in one of the best worldwide function class on the upcoming Oscars, and winner of a number of prizes together with finest image on the nation’s annual Ophir awards.
Author-director Carmeli-Pollak’s debut function is a couple of younger Palestinian boy from a village close to Ramallah who units off on a faculty journey to see the Mediterranean Sea for the primary time. When he’s denied entry by authorities who declare his allow is invalid, he units out on his personal as his father, an undocumented employee in Israel, dangers the whole lot to seek for him.
Shot in Arabic and Hebrew, it gained the Israeli Academy of Movie and Tv’s Ophir awards for finest movie, screenplay, actor for its 13-year-old Palestinian star Muhammad Gazawi, supporting actor for Khalifa Natour, and authentic music. Consistent with Israeli trade protocol, the winner of one of the best movie prize mechanically turns into the nation’s Oscar candidate.
The Sea is produced by Baher Agbariya for Majdal Movies, the corporate behind Hany Abu-Assad’s 2014 Oscar nominee Omar and The Idol, and Maha Haj’s Private Affairs and Mediterranean Fever.
Menemsha picked up the movie following its world premiere on the Jerusalem Movie Pageant in July, the place it earned a trio of prizes, and can launch the movie theatrically in North America in spring 2026. After its Ophir awards triumph, Israel’s tradition minister Miki Zohar introduced that the ministry would now not fund the Ophir awards beginning in 2026.
Carmeli-Pollack informed Display screen the movie is “the results of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers working collectively. The crew was fully combined. We may hear Arabic and Hebrew on a regular basis on set.”
He added: “The journey the boy takes within the movie was the identical one all of us took collectively when making the movie, travelling from Palestinian villages to Israeli cities and Tel Aviv all collectively.”
Agbariya, a Palestinian producer and citizen of Israel himself, mentioned: “What started as a easy story a couple of boy’s longing grew right into a meditation on freedom and human connection. It’s profoundly transferring to see that journey discover its means past our shores.”
Menemsha Movies president Neil Friedman mentioned, “The Sea superbly portrays the world considered by means of a baby’s eyes.”