The Sea

Source: Shai Goldman

The Sea

EXCLUSIVE: Menemsha Films has taken on US distribution rights to Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea, Israel’s submission in the best international feature category at the upcoming Oscars, and winner of multiple prizes including best picture at the country’s annual Ophir awards.

Writer-director Carmeli-Pollak’s debut feature is about a young Palestinian boy from a village near Ramallah who sets off on a school trip to see the Mediterranean Sea for the first time. When he is denied entry by authorities who claim his permit is invalid, he sets out on his own as his father, an undocumented worker in Israel, risks everything to search for him.

Shot in Arabic and Hebrew, it won the Israeli Academy of Film and Television’s Ophir awards for best film, screenplay, actor for its 13-year-old Palestinian star Muhammad Gazawi, supporting actor for Khalifa Natour, and original music. In line with Israeli industry protocol, the winner of the best film prize automatically becomes the country’s Oscar candidate.

The Sea is produced by Baher Agbariya for Majdal Films, the company behind Hany Abu-Assad’s 2014 Oscar nominee Omar and The Idol, and Maha Haj’s Personal Affairs and Mediterranean Fever.

Menemsha picked up the film following its world premiere at the Jerusalem Film Festival in July, where it earned a trio of prizes, and will release the film theatrically in North America in spring 2026. After its Ophir awards triumph, Israel’s culture minister Miki Zohar announced that the ministry would no longer fund the Ophir awards starting in 2026. 

Carmeli-Pollack told Screen the film is “the result of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers working together. The crew was completely mixed. We could hear Arabic and Hebrew all the time on set.”

He added: “The journey the boy takes in the film was the same one we all took together when making the film, travelling from Palestinian villages to Israeli towns and Tel Aviv all together.”

Agbariya, a Palestinian producer and citizen of Israel himself, said: “What began as a simple story about a boy’s longing grew into a meditation on freedom and human connection. It’s profoundly moving to see that journey find its way beyond our shores.”

Menemsha Films president Neil Friedman said, “The Sea beautifully portrays the world viewed through a child’s eyes.”

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