Israeli film Ajami takes best first feature at London festival
Israeli documentary Defamation also wins top place; Ajami now to face off 54 films at Academy Awards.
By Haaretz Service Tags: Waltz with Bashir London Israel newsThe Israeli film "Ajami," a potential contender for the Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Film prize, took the Sutherland first-feature award at the London Film Festival on Wednesday.
Another film recognized at the event was the documentary "Defamation," a look at anti-Semitism around the world, which won its director Yoav Shamir the Grierson documentary prize.
"Ajami," co-directed by Palestinian Scandar Copti and Israeli Yaron Shani, and set in a mixed Jewish-Arab district of Jaffa, was placed on the preliminary list of candidates for the Academy Award's 2010 Best Foreign Language Film earlier this month.
Israel's entry, however, will likely face tough competition. As of Wednesday, 54 films were on the Academy's preliminary list.
Israeli films have been on the Academy Awards short list of nominees for two years running, with 2008's "Beaufort" and 2009's "Waltz with Bashir" both failing to take the prize.
"Ajami" also won a certificate of distinction in the Camera d'Or competition at last May's Cannes Film Festival as well as winninh a prestigious local prize, the Israel Film Academy's Ophir Award for Best Film, earlier this month.
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Brilliant film divided into 5 interweaving stories with flashbacks and flash-forwards in time which allows the film to reveal more about the individual characters, presenting them as anything but two dimensional. It is also a real eye opener into the world of the clan justice system which recognizes no value or rights whatsoever for the individual and determines justice by blood money that must be paid to appease the honor of the aggrieved clan. It is a system which holds any clan member directly responsible for any alleged or actual breach committed by one of his or her relatives. And if the clan accusing you is more powerful, more numerous and wealthier than your clan, you lose. How tragic that those, especially on the left, who claim to speak on behalf of human rights, are so obsessed with resorting to hyperbole with which to bash Israel, assuming that by so doing they are being pro-Palestinian, would rather hold this draconian and imperialistic amoral system in deep abeyance.