We haven’t yet reviewed “Foxtrot,” but by all accounts, it was one of the highlights of a Venice Film Festival that was full of highlights. The second film – and the first in eight years – from Israeli director Samuel Maoz (who helmed the gripping set-entirely-within-a-tank-drama “Lebanon”), won rave reviews from the Lido, and again at Telluride, and again at TIFF. And it topped off a successful festival run by winning the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize (essentially second place) from Annette Bening’s Venice jury.
It looks to kick off a hugely successful release for the movie that could take it all the way to the Oscars, but there’s at least one notable person who’s not a fan of the movie — the most senior cultural figure in Israel, the movie’s home nation.
In a Facebook post (via Screen Daily), Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev attacked the movie after its victory in Venice, saying that “When an Israeli film wins an international prize, my heart fills with pride and my natural desire is to strengthen and encourage Israeli success. This rule has one exception – the international embrace of self-flagellation and cooperation with the anti-Israeli narrative. The award received by Foxtrot in Venice… belongs to the exception.” Regev later added that the film would give “a tailwind to BDS (the anti-occupation boycott group) and haters of Israel all around the world.”
With the movie following a family mourning the death of their son, who is killed while serving in the Israeli Defence Forces in the north of the country, it’s perhaps not surprising that a representative of the government isn’t thrilled about it, but it’s still pretty shocking that Regev would directly attack the movie like this.
Then again, it does form part of an ongoing narrative — Regev is part of an increasingly Trumpian trend in Israeli politics having previously called for films and other art that criticizes the country, to be stripped of their government funding – a call she reiterated this weekend.
Fortunately, it’s a move that’s likely to backfire, by causing posts like this one. Israel has one of the world’s great filmmaking cultures, and attempts at heavy-handed censorship like this are an attack on one of the country’s proudest exports. We’re psyched to see “Foxtrot,” and you can get a glimpse of it in the curiously joyful clip from the film below.
