Israeli Film Academy’s 2006 Ophir Winners
by Andre Soares
The winners of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television’s 2006 Ophir Awards, the Israeli equivalent to the Oscars, were announced yesterday at a ceremony in Tel Aviv.
For the first time, two films tied for the top prize: the odds-on favorite Aviva Ahuvati / Aviva My Love, which also won the Best Director (Shemi Zarhin) and Best Screenplay (Itzik Portal) awards, unexpectedly shared the Best Film award with Dror Shaul’s coming-of-age tale Adama Meshuga’at / Sweet Mud, about a boy growing up in a Kibbutz in the 1970s.
Aviva My Love, the tale of a hotel cook who dreams of becoming a writer, won three other awards, including Best Actress for Assi Levy as the writer wannabe. The Best Actor was Assi Dayan, as a man who looks back on his life while his father lies dying in Things Behind the Sun.
A follow-up vote will take place on Sunday to decide which of the two Best Film winners will be Israel’s submission for the 2006 Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award.
By the way, Eytan Fox’s box-office hit, The Bubble, failed to win a single Ophir. (In the Jerusalem Post, Hannah Brown asserts that the Israeli Academy of Film, unlike its American counterpart, has a tendency to snub commercially successful films.)
The Alternative Film Guide thanks Aviad Shamir for the 2006 Ophir winners list.
Full list of 2006 Ophir winners
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