Last year “The Band’s Visit” won the Ophir Awards (the Israeli equivalent of the Oscars), but was disqualified from the Foreign Language Oscar for having too much English dialog. It went on to become the highest grossing Israeli film in the US. Last year’s Ophir runner-up, “Beaufort”, went on to become the first Israeli movie in 24 years to be nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar.

Now, one year later…

The nominees for the Israeli Academy Awards, The Ophir Awards, were announced yesterday. Local smash hit, “Lost Islands” the directorial debut for seasoned screen and stage writer Reshef Levi, is leading the nominees with 14 nods in all of the ceremony’s 13 categories (scoring a double nomination in the Supporting Actor category). By yesterday, “Lost Islands” is the best selling Israeli movie so far in 2008, with 120,000 tickets sold in four weeks. I expect him to finish over the 200,000 tickets mark by the time the Ophirs are handed out, September 23rd.

“Seven Days” (”Shiv’a”), Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz’s family film, which takes place in one apartment in the seven days of mourning, where a family of seven brothers grief and come to blows, is the runner-up with 13 nominations. The film has yet to be released theatrically in Israel (one of the many quirks of The Israeli Academy’s absurd regulations). “Seven Days” was the opening film of the Cannes sidebar “The Critic’s Week” and has recently won the top prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

Cannes favorite, “Waltz With Bashir”, which many consider the sure winner of the Best Picture prize, is nominated for seven prizes. Because “Bashir” is animated it doesn’t have any nominees in the acting awards. Another Academy regulation fiasco is the ban on the inclusion of non-Israeli nominees. Thus, “Bashir”’s outstanding soundtrack, composed by Scotland’s Max Richter was left un-nominated.

“Bashir” garnered some stellar reviews in Israel, but a limited distribution left the film with a softish box-office result in the 50,000 tickets range. A win could propel sales across the 100,000 tickets mark.

Both “Bashir” and “Seven Days” were released in France in the last month, getting rave reviews. “Bashir” is also a bone-fide french hit, and has already sold 350,000 tickets in nearly 200 prints in France. “Bashir” was picked up in Cannes by Sony Pictures Classics for the North American distribution. Sony Pictures Classics released Israeli hit “The Band’s Visit” earlier this year, it has become the biggest Israeli grosser in America with 3 million dollars. It has earned over 11 million dollars world-wide. Sony Pictures Classics also released last years French animated memoir, “Persepolis”, and navigated it into an art-house hit and a Best animated Feature nomination. “Bashir” should follow the “Persepolis” playbook, with one exception: “Bashir” is much better, more profound and immensely more moving them “Persepolis”.

The two other Best Picture nominees are Igal Burzstyn’s “Out of the Blue” and Marco Carmel’s “Comme ton père” (”Like Your Father”) an odd inclusion of a french language Israeli-French co-production, with mainly French actors that already tanked on French screens in late 2007.

Eran Riklis’s “Lemon Tree”, another movie that did mediocre business in Israel but fared better on French screens last spring, is nominated for seven awards, including best director, but not for best picture.

Indeed, “Bashir”, “Seven Days”, “Comme ton Pere” and “Lemon Tree” were co-financed by French co-production. “Lost Islands” was wholly funded by Israeli grants and private money, but has its worldwide sales handled by a French company. It looks like in 2008 the French like Israeli movies more then the Israelis.

The nominees in the top categories are:

Best Picture:
“Lost Islands”
“Seven Days”
“Waltz With Bashir”
“Comme ton Pere”
“Out of the Blue”

Best Director(s):
Reshef Levi, “Lost Islands”
Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz, “Seven Days”
Ari Folman, “Waltz With Bashir”
Marco Carmel, “Comme ton Pere”
Eran Riklis, “Lemon Tree”