"A lost boy walks slowly through Tel Aviv's central bus station. Two soldiers pass him, and he turns away to avoid being noticed. Yet there's nothing noticeable about him-brown hair, blue eyes, a chin just beginning to widen into adolescence-except the mix of fear and determination that shows when the camera zooms in on his face. He asks a passerby, perhaps too quietly to be heard, "Do you speak Arabic?," but the man rushes by."
"The Sea is an Israeli production, even though it is one that blurs the line between "Israeli" and "Palestinian." The first frame of the film acknowledges funding from the Israel Film Fund, a nonprofit funded by the state's Ministry of Culture and Sport. The scenes set in Khaled's village were filmed in the West Bank, the rest in Israel. And it has just won the Ophir-the Israeli equivalent of an Oscar-for best picture, making it Israel's entry for best foreign film at the Academy Awards."
Khaled, a Palestinian boy from a West Bank village near Ramallah, is barred at a checkpoint from joining his class trip to the beach and subsequently crosses under the border fence with Palestinian men working without permits to reach the sea. The journey portrays a mix of fear and determination as Khaled navigates a foreign, dangerous world. The Sea is an Israeli production filmed partly in the West Bank and funded by the Israel Film Fund. The film won the Ophir for best picture and became Israel's Academy Awards entry. Muhammad Gazawi, who plays Khaled, won best actor at 14, the youngest-ever Ophir recipient. Shai Carmeli Pollak wrote and directed the film.
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