After being denied passage, Khaled manages to secretly cross the separation barrier between the Palestinian territories and Israel and finds himself in a foreign land not far from home. His longing to head out from the West Bank and see the sea for the first time in his life is compounded by curiosity and fear. Meanwhile, his father, who earns a living in Israel through unregistered odd jobs, sets out to find his lost son.
The film – a collaboration between Israeli director Shai Carmeli-Pollak and Palestinian producer Baher Agbaria – is essentially a typical father-son story. That alone makes it worth watching. Yet the emotional tension the two protagonists experience is amplified disproportionately by political circumstances: the child’s natural desire for freedom, the simple wish to move freely and escape constant pressure contrasts with the suspicious glances of passers-by and the police. Every step towards perceived freedom becomes just as risky as the father’s search for his son.
In September 2025, the film won five awards at the Ophir Awards, the Israeli Film Academy Awards, including that for Best Film, making it Israel’s official submission for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film. Thirteen-year-old Muhammad Gazawi received the award for Best Actor. The Israeli Minister of Culture, Miki Zohar, was so angered by the stream of awards for the Israeli–Arab film and the protests by the assembled film-makers’ against the Gaza War that he announced he would discontinue funding for the award ceremonies.
During the award ceremony, producer Agbaria emphasised that “this is not taken for granted in such dark days when the sounds of war and the noise of weapons try to silence the human voice. This film was born from love for humanity and cinema, and its message is one – the right of every child to live and dream in peace, without siege, without fear, and without war.“ A sensitive, understated film that, in the current climate, found itself under attack from two camps: on the one hand from right-wing hardliners, on the other from proponents of a boycott of Israeli films.
Text: Bernd Buder