A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #470 - [Palestine]CINEMA. The Sea (Il Mare, 2025) by Shai Carmeli-Pollak Traveling to reach the sea (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Italian cinema, it must be said, is a stable of imbecility crowned with 
Lions, Davids, Nastri, Globes, Ciak d'Oro... where the most followed 
event on TV news and social networks is the stars' dresses on the red 
carpet... they talk about "tailors" as they once talked about the beauty 
of the SS uniforms produced by Ugo Boss... they were truly beautiful 
under the swastikas, especially when they were exterminating millions of 
Jews (homosexuals, madmen, gypsies, disabled people, communists, 
anarchists) in the extermination camps... it's a shame that Israeli 
Zionists have forgotten or manipulated the Holocaust in favor of a new 
catastrophe of which they are the main executioners. If I'm asked if I'm 
anti-Semitic, I say no; if I'm anti-Zionist, I say of course! I don't 
like tyrants of any race... they should be fricasseeed (an ancient 
method of cooking meat, typical of French peasant cuisine at the time of 
the 1789 Revolution) and fed to stray dogs... made to experience the 
fear (and piss themselves) they inflicted on the least of the earth for 
centuries. Humans, artists, and any person of any faith or skin color 
have the right to express their opinion before any court. With all the 
risks that entails, including the risk of losing their lives. Shai 
Carmeli-Pollak is an Israeli director, screenwriter, photographer, and 
peace activist who makes political and social films... after the Second 
Intifada in the early 2000s, he joined the direct action group 
Anarchists Against the Wall. Along with other Israeli and international 
activists, Shai Carmeli-Pollak mobilized in Palestinian communities in 
the West Bank to physically and nonviolently oppose the construction of 
the Israeli government's concrete wall. The Anarchists Against the Wall 
collective rejected the old adages of generic pacifism (intellectual 
lobbies, aphasic conferences, philosophical chatter) and organized 
sabotage of the barriers, blocking bulldozers, and promoting mass 
demonstrations. Action on the ground, however, had to be coordinated and 
led by popular committees in Palestinian villages, not by politicians. 
Israeli and international activists offered their bodies as "shields" 
against Israeli repression. In 2006, Shai Carmeli-Pollak took her camera 
directly into the demonstrations to document the brutality of the 
military. From this field experience, he shoots from within the 
movement, Bil'in My Love (2006), which has been called a "documentary 
masterpiece"... bears witness to the resistance of the inhabitants of 
the Palestinian village of Bil'in against the construction of the 
Israeli separation wall in the West Bank... in 2008 the Bil'in village 
committee and the group Anarchists Against the Wall were jointly awarded 
the prestigious Carl von Ossietzky Medal for Human Rights in Berlin.
The Anarchists Against the Wall group disbanded in 2010, but its 
libertarian legacy emerges in every sequence of The Sea.
In the documentary Refugees (Ha-Plitim, 2008), Shai Carmeli-Pollak films 
the dramatic situation of migrants crossing from Sudan and Eritrea... 
flows of people who cross the Sinai desert on foot... with nothing, 
empty-handed... facing harrowing conditions as they cross the border 
between Egypt and Israel in a desperate attempt to seek refuge, some 
protection, a welcome from the devastation of dictatorships and 
persecution in their countries... and are harshly rejected, beaten, or 
confined to detention facilities by the State of Israel. The director, 
in an interview with the American magazine Cineaste (America's leading 
magazine on the art and politics of cinema), says that with Refugees he 
wanted to highlight the historical and moral paradox of a nation founded 
to provide refuge to a persecuted people, which instead finds itself 
rejecting and persecuting other human beings fleeing desperation. A 
section of the United Nations (UN), the International Court of Justice 
(ICJ), international human rights organizations, Amnesty International, 
Human Rights Watch (HRW), Euro-Med Monitor, the Arab League, the 
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and many countries around the 
world... consider the genocide in Gaza a crime against humanity.
In the fictional film The Sea (2025), Shai Carmeli-Pollak recounts the 
journey of Khaled (Muhammad Gazawi), a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who 
clandestinely passes through Israeli checkpoints to see the sea for the 
first time. The film was produced with a $598,600 grant from the Israel 
Film Foundation and triumphed at the 2025 Ophir Awards (Israel's 
Oscars), winning five awards, including Best Picture. According to 
Israeli Academy rules, the winner of Best Picture automatically becomes 
Israel's official representative at the Oscars, in the Best 
International Feature Film category. It's hilarious! Upon seeing The 
Sea, Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar jumped to his 
feet and announced a complete freeze on state funding for the Ophir 
Awards ceremony. The withdrawal of taxpayer funding is explicitly 
intended to punish the Israeli Film Academy for awarding Shai 
Carmeli-Pollak's work.
Miki Zohar accused the film of exclusively promoting the Palestinian 
narrative and of portraying IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers in a 
"false and defamatory" manner. It "spits in the face of Israeli citizens 
and soldiers," he said, and it's true. On stage at the Ophir Awards, 
young actor Muhammad Gazawi, awarded for best performance, uttered these 
words: "I wish all children could live and dream without war." Of the 
dreams of Palestinian children, the Israeli minister knows only the 
blood of innocence in which the IDF thugs wallow. "You have always been 
killed in too few... we will spit on your graves until the end of time."
Of The Sea. Khaled is (as already mentioned) a twelve-year-old boy from 
Ramallah ("House of God")... his greatest desire is to see the sea, 
which is 50/60 kilometers from the city, less than an hour's journey... 
the occasion is a school trip that takes him to the beaches of the 
Mediterranean... at an Israeli military checkpoint, the soldiers declare 
his permit invalid and send him back, while his classmates continue on. 
The boy returns home... when the students return to Ramallah, they 
describe to Khaled the wonderful day spent on the beach... after a few 
days Khaled sets out to reach the sea... he doesn't know the way or 
speak Hebrew... he crosses the border clandestinely. His father, Ribhi 
(Khalifa Natour), is a precarious illegal immigrant who works as a 
bricklayer in Tel Aviv, who quits his job and risks arrest to search for 
his missing son. Khaled wanders the streets of the Israeli city in 
search of the sea. Khaled's gaze becomes a kind of mirror reflecting 
skyscrapers, shops, cars, and people living a daily life very different 
from that of Ramallah... young people roam freely around the city... 
tourists are completely indifferent to the cruelty of surveillance... 
the architecture of the occupation, the concrete barriers, the barbed 
wire, the armed soldiers in the streets... reveal inequalities and are 
based on identity and passport... Palestinians are enemies to be 
defeated and downgraded to criminals, even children... all the others, 
good citizens to be welcomed and perpetuate the racial discrimination of 
the Zionist government of Israel.
Khaled's father is a Palestinian worker without a valid permit. When his 
family learns that Khaled has fled to Israel, they set out in search of 
their son... he wanders the suburbs and streets of Tel Aviv, fearful 
that the police might stop and arrest him... after a long and desperate 
search, Ribhi spots his son almost by the sea... they are reunited, but 
there's not even time for a moment of affection... the police intervene 
and arrest them because they don't have documents. The final scene at 
the outdoor café is touching... Israeli customers, tourists, and the 
waitress pause for a moment to watch the father and son being pushed 
into the police car... as soon as the car drives away, people resume 
chatting as if nothing had happened and ordering cappuccinos... the 
director's visual metaphor highlights the normalization of apartheid and 
Israeli arrogance.
Khaled sees the sea only in a fleeting glimpse from the window of the 
police car. Shai Carmeli-Pollak's screenplay is extremely lean, and the 
filming of The Sea has an almost documentary-like sequentiality, a true 
road movie about the captivity of the Israeli government's disappearance 
policy. Shai Goldman's cinematography is crafted with the direct 
simplicity of film; the images are arranged like a family album, without 
frills or captivating artifice. Yosef Grunfeld's (or Joseph Greenfeld's) 
editing alternates linear narration with sudden accelerations, conveying 
the protagonist's bewilderment in a sort of metropolitan odyssey 
experienced by the boy, tied to his father's anguish. Avi Belleli's 
music unfolds in a perceptual fragmentation that suggests a spiritual 
closeness to the protagonists... a remarkable musical score that blends 
with the film's images... until the sensorial dissolution of the final 
sequence, when the police prevent the boy from seeing the sea. The Sea 
is a denunciation of the dehumanization of the Zionist Israeli 
government and asserts the universal right of childhood and a people to 
freedom.

Pino Bertelli

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/wp-content/uploads/giugno2026_compressed-1.pdf
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en