{"id":11545,"date":"2013-12-22T12:13:52","date_gmt":"2013-12-22T18:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=11545"},"modified":"2013-12-22T12:13:52","modified_gmt":"2013-12-22T18:13:52","slug":"israel-out-palestinians-still-in-for-oscar-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/israel-out-palestinians-still-in-for-oscar-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel out, Palestinians still in for Oscar race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES (JTA) \u2014 Israel is out and Palestine is still in the Oscar race for best foreign language film.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s entry \u201cBethlehem,\u201d winner as best film at the 2013 Venice Film Festival, did not make the cut when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nine semifinalists on Friday. The Palestinian film \u201cOmar\u201d\u00a0 was one of the semifinalists.<\/p>\n<p>Both films reflect the intensity of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n<p>In \u201cOmar,\u201d the title character and the beautiful Nadja pine for each other on opposite sides of the security fence. In the process of jumping the wall and participating in the shooting of an Israeli soldier, Omar, played by Adam Bakri, is caught by Israeli undercover agents, who torture him and try to turn him into a collaborator.\u00a0Distrusted by the Israelis and reviled as a traitor by his own people, Omar is driven to one last desperate act.<\/p>\n<p>Director Hany Abu-Assad won critical praise for two previous films, \u201cParadise Now\u201d and \u201cRana\u2019s Wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In \u201cBethlehem,\u201d director Yuval Adler and his co-writer, Palestinian journalist Ali Waked, draw no moral judgments in the struggle between the Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security agency, against Hamas and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade.<\/p>\n<p>The shortlist of five finalists in the foreign-language and other categories will be announced on Jan. 16. The Oscars will be given out on March 2 in Hollywood.<\/p>\n<p>A record 76 countries entered films. Perhaps the most surprising omission on the list of semifinalists was \u201cThe Past\u201d by Iranian director Ashgar Farhadi, who won the Academy Award two years ago with \u201cA Separation.\u201d Similarly slighted was the heavily promoted \u201cWadja,\u201d the first-ever submission by Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli filmmakers\u2019 record of 10 nominations place Israel among the 10 most nominated countries, though the Israeli film industry has yet to bring home its first Academy Award.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Israel%20out%2C%20Palestinians%20still%20in%20for%20Oscar%20race\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4639,8781,8790,8795,8788,749,380],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11546,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545\/revisions\/11546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}