Israeli, Jewish-themed films up for Oscars

Thursday, February 4, 2010 | by

Three Jewish-themed films and an Israeli film are in the running for Academy Awards.

“Inglourious Basterds,” a Jewish revenge fantasy in which a squad of Jewish GIs wipes out the Nazi leadership, won nominations for best picture, directing and writing for Quentin Tarantino, best supporting actor for Christoph Waltz and best cinematography for Robert Richardson.

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Michael Stuhlbarg (left) stars as Larry Gopnik and Fred Melamed plays Sy Ableman in the Coen brother’s “A Serious Man,” up for best picture and best original screenplay. photo/wilson webb/focus features
Two other films that received best picture nominations have varying degrees of Jewish content: the British film “An Education,” which stars Peter Sarsgaard as a Jewish man who seduces an impressionable teen, and Joel and Ethan Coen’s “A Serious Man.” Both have won high critical acclaim for their artistry, but also a few lemons for perceived anti-Semitism.

Jewish nominees included the Coen brothers, who also were nominated for best original screenplay for “A Serious Man,” Jason Reitman for directing the hit movie “Up in the Air,” and Maggie Gyllenhaal, nominated for best supporting actress for “Crazy Heart.”

Meanwhile, “Ajami” became the third Israeli entry in consecutive years to be nominated for best foreign language film, though no Israeli film has ever won the award. The film will be shown Feb. 25 at the East Bay International Jewish Film Festival.

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Peter Sarsgaard plays a Jewish man who seduces an impressionable teen (Carey Mulligan) in “An Education,” a British film nominated for best picture. photo/kerry brown/courtesy of sony pictures classics
“Ajami” paints an unsparing picture of Arab-Jewish and intra-Arab tensions in a mixed quarter of Jaffa. Its co-directors are two young Israelis: Scandar Copti, a Christian Arab, and Yaron Shani, who is Jewish. The film won a Special Distinction in the Camera d’Or competition for first-time filmmakers at Cannes, as well as the Ophir Award (Israel’s Oscar) for best film, which made it the country’s submission for the Academy Awards.

The German entry “The White Ribbon,” which won the Golden Globe for best foreign language film (“Ajami” was not nominated for a Globe), also was nominated in the foreign language category. The story revolves around a seemingly placid German village in 1914, but whose rigid class structure and authoritarianism holds the seed of the Nazi era to come.

Along with “Ajami” and “The White Ribbon,” the other nominees for best foreign film are “El Secreto de Sus Ojos,” from Argentina; “A Prophet,” from France; and “The Milk of Sorrow,” from Peru.

The Oscar winners will be announced March 7 in Los Angeles. — jta & jpost.com