EXCLUSIVE: Italy’s Coccinelle Film Sales has acquired international rights to Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea, which won best picture at Israel’s Ophir Awards last year, prompting the country’s culture minister Miki Zohar to threaten to withdraw state funding from the awards.
The Arabic-Hebrew language feature is an Israeli production led by Palestinian-Israeli producer Baher Agbariya. Set between the West Bank and Israel, it follows a young boy whose dream of seeing the sea becomes an odyssey through checkpoints, borders and invisible barriers.
Until now, Agbariya has been representing the film himself, with potential partners understood to be concerned by the film’s support from the Israeli Film Fund.
“When they hear ‘Israel’, the first thing they want to do is boycott it, but it is about Palestinians,” said Agbariya, who added that he believed the culture minister’s criticism of the film had actually been “very helpful’.
Menemsha Films has US rights, and Maatmov has handled The Sea in France. In Italy, the film was released by Mescalito Films and Pueblo Unido, into 130 cinemas through a grassroots-driven rollout combining theatrical screenings, debates connected to Gaza and the Freedom Flotilla and activist networks.
Agbariya is now developing his next film, Midnight Rocket, a comedy set in Haifa during the current Iran-Israel war. The film is about three friends, Arabs and Jews, who commit a crime to solve their financial problems.
Coccinelle Film Sales founder Francesca Breccia said: “Beyond the political discussion surrounding it, what struck me most about The Sea is its emotional simplicity and humanity. The film transforms a child’s very simple wish — to see the sea — into something universal and profoundly moving. I believe audiences and distributors are increasingly looking for films that are not only cinematically strong, but also able to generate conversation and cultural urgency.”
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