Three films focused on Gaza war and hostage crisis nominated for Oscars |
Two Israeli films and a Tunisian movie about the Gaza war and the hostage crisis were nominated for Academy Awards on Thursday as the vampire period horror film “Sinners” smashed the all-time Oscars record with 16 nominations.
The heavily Jewish period sports comedy “Marty Supreme” starring Timothée Chalamet also picked up nine nominations, including best picture and best actor for the red-hot Chalamet, the 30-year-old thespian who is seen as likely to nab his first Oscar for the role.
Israel’s “Butcher’s Stain,” made by Meyer Levinson-Blount while at Tel Aviv University’s film school, was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film. The film follows Samir, an Arab butcher in Tel Aviv, who sets out on a journey to prove his innocence after he’s accused of removing posters of Israeli hostages being held by the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
The film won second place in the narrative category of the Student Academy Awards in the fall.
“Children No More: Were and Are Gone,” directed by award-winning filmmaker Hilla Medalia, was nominated for Best Documentary Short Film.
Medalia’s film is about a weekly vigil that began in March 2025 in Tel Aviv, as a handful of protesters held photos of children killed in Gaza, a gathering which grew over time into a powerful silent protest.
Another film about Gazan children, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” a Tunisian docu-drama about a five-year-old girl allegedly killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year and told from the perspective of the Palestinian Red Crescent, was nominated for Best International Feature.
The film, by Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, tells the story of Hind Rajab Hamada, who was fleeing in Gaza City with six relatives last year when their car came under fire.
It dramatizes the effort by Palestinian Red Crescent dispatchers in the central West Bank to send........