Israel Picks HIV Drama 'Tell Me Everything' for Oscars — SkimNews
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- Moshe Rosenthal's "Tell Me Everything" won Best Picture at Israel's Ophir Awards, automatically qualifying the film as the country's entry for the international feature film category at the 99th Academy Awards.
- The film premiered at Sundance in the world cinema dramatic competition and is set in the 1980s against the rising HIV epidemic, following 12-year-old Boaz (Yair Mazor) and his adult self (Ido Tako) as they confront a devastating family secret.
- "Tell Me Everything" swept the Ophirs with 10 wins from 16 nominations, with Assi Cohen, Keren Tzur, Mor Dimri, and Neta Orbach rounding out the cast.
- Rosenthal called the film "a personal film that draws heavily from my own childhood," with Paradise City Sales (formerly Memento International) handling global distribution.
- Last year's Ophirs drew political fire when Israeli culture and sports minister Miki Zohar threatened government funding cuts after "The Sea," an Arabic-language drama about a Palestinian West Bank boy, took top prize — Zohar calling its depiction of soldiers "defamatory and false."
Why it matters: The Ophir winner automatically becomes Israel's Oscar entry, giving "Tell Me Everything" a direct path to the international feature race — but the Zohar funding controversy shows the country's top film prize is now a political flashpoint, with the culture minister openly vowing to defund future ceremonies that reward narratives he considers critical of the military.
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