Ophir Awards 2025: Success for JFBB films and guests

At this year's JFBB, A LETTER TO DAVID was screened in the documentary film competition and has now been named Best Documentary Film at the Ophir Awards. In it, director Tom Shoval reflects on the fate of David Cunio, one of the main characters in his 2013 feature film YOUTH, which was shown in the Berlinale Panorama, and who was kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October 2023.

Producer Baher Agbariya, who spoke about his work as a guest at the JFBB in May, also received an honour: with THE SEA, he won five of the coveted awards, including the prize for Best Film. Directed by Shai Carmeli-Pollak, the film, which has also been nominated as Israel's candidate for the ‘Foreign Language Oscar’, centres on a 12-year-old Palestinian boy from the West Bank who runs away from home to see the sea for the first time and wanders aimlessly through Israel. Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport Miki Zohar took offence at the film and what he considered a ‘shameful’ award ceremony – and subsequently cancelled funding for the Ophir Awards from 2026 onwards.

We congratulate the award-winning filmmakers and are deeply perplexed by this political reaction to a film that deals with interpersonal relationships in a very touching and delicate way.