Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid won the Jury Prize at France's prestigious Cannes Film Festival for his film "Ha'berech (Ahed's Knee)."
Lapid shared the honor with Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul, director of Memoria.
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Israeli director Nadav Lapid gives a speech after he was awarded with the Jury Prize for the film 'Ha'Berech' during the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France
(Photo: AFP)
The award amounts to a third-place prize, after the Palme d'Or, claimed by France's Julia Ducournau for "Titane," and the Grand Prix, shared this year by Iranian Ashgar Farhadi's "A Hero" and Juho Kuosmanen's "Compartment No.6," of Finland.
The 46-year-old Israeli won the top prize at the Berlin film festival in 2019 for "Synonyms", a loosely autobiographical story about a young man trying to shed his Israeli identity when he moves to Paris.
His latest, in competition for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, is also based on a real-life event: a call Lapid received from an Israeli official, inviting him to present a film in a remote desert village, but also asking him to sign a form promising to stick to certain approved subjects.
Speaking at Cannes, Lapid said that his biggest concern was how such moves forced artists to censor themselves.
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British actress Rosamund Pike awarding Nadav Lapid with the Jury Prize at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival
(Photo: Getty Images)
"The sad thing in Israel is you don't have to put tanks in front of the Israeli Film Fund, you don't have to arrest a director and throw him in jail like in Russia. It's effective just to say 'enough politics, guys, let's talk about family.'
"What bothers me is not the censorship of the state, but when censorship becomes part of your soul, your mind. Censorship from within. It accompanies you like a shadow," he said.