Highly feted Israeli thriller Policeman has been picked up by Bodega Films for France.

The deal was confirmed this week by sales company Wide Management.

Nadav Lapid’s film, which won a special jury award at Locarno as well as screenplay and cinematography awards in Jerusalem, is about a policeman who works for the Israeli anti-terrorist unit. The movie has a strong political dimension. As Screen International’s review noted, “It subverts cop story genre conventions to reveal the tortured soul at the heart of Israeli society.” Yiftach Klein stars as the troubled cop, Yaron.

“In the ’60s and ’70s, when political terrorism rose in Western Europe, Israel was socialist, basically egalitarian. Today, Israel has the widest economical gaps in the Western world,” Lapid has commented of the class conflicts within Israel that the film explores.

Policeman, Lapid’s debut feature, was chosen for the Cinefondation Atelier in Cannes in in 2008. The film was produced through Itai Tamir’s Tel-Aviv-based Laila Films.

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