Last update - 00:00 28/09/2006
'Sweet Mud' selected by academy to represent Israel at Oscars
By Goel Pinto
The Israeli Film Academy on Thursday chose the movie "Sweet Mud" to represent Israel in the best foreign film category of the Oscars.
"I am very happy," said the film's director, Dror Shaul, "I awaited this decision and it could have a very profound impact, both on the film's global sales and my career."
Shaul is best known for his comedies "Operation Grandma" and "Sima Vaknin is a Witch." In his current film, Shaul tells a personal story of a young boy in a 1970's kibbutz whose family suffers from abuse and alienation at the hands of the other kibbutz members. Ronit Yodkevitch, who won acclaim for her role in "Gift from Above," plays the boy's emotionally-disturbed mother, whose children are forced to look after her and suffer from her maltreatment at the hands of the community.
At the annual Israeli Film Academy awards ceremony held 10 days ago, "Sweet Mud" was chosen along with Shemi Zarhin's "Aviva My Love" as the year's best picture, with both films receiving an equal number of votes.
This unprecedented situation left the Israeli Film Academy, headed by Ilana Sharon, unprepared and without a bylaw instructing it on which of the two films to send to the Oscars. The issue was eventually decided by a special vote held among the academy's roughly 700 members.
"Sweet Mud" was the co-production of teams from Germany, France, and even Japan, which is investing for the first time in an Israeli film.
Shaul began working on the film along with some of the world's best screenwriters in the Sundance Festival's screenplay workshops. The winner of last year's Golden Globe award for best foreign-language film, Hani Abu Assad, made his start on his award-winning film "Paradise Now" in a similar way. In addition to the Golden Globe award, Abu Assad's film was among five finalists in its catagory in the Oscars.
The results of the Israeli academy vote was surprising, given that "Sweet Mud" did not win in most of the major categories - best director, best editing, best screenplay, best actors.
"This fact shows," said Shaul, "that the Israeli film industry is blossoming, and the academy members were forced to choose between 21 good movies."
Shaul will now begin a marketing campaign in the United States in order to try to persuade members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to vote for the film.
"We know a lot of people in the United States because I was at Sundance," said Shaul, "And some of them are academy members who have believed in the movie all along."
"I believe and hope that we will be selected among the five finalists," added Shaul. "But I am trying not to get my hopes up because this movie is neither political nor deals with a pressing current affairs issue."
Despite not dealing with a current affairs issue, as Shaul puts it, the global interest in the film demonstrates that while the film takes place on a 1970's kibbutz, the relationships between family members and social alienation sound and look alike worldwide.
"We were just at the Toronto Film Festival, the largest film festival in North America,' said Shaul. "The image presented in the film of 1970's Israel, along with the mother-son relationship, have proven themselves to transcend language and culture."