Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid has been awarded the Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival for his film "Ha'Berech" (Ahed's Knee.)
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Lapid shared the honor with Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul, director of "Memoria."
This year's top honor, the Palme d'Or, was claimed by France's Julia Ducournau for "Titane," and the Grand Prix went to Iranian Ashgar Farhadi's "A Hero" and Juho Kuosmanen's "Compartment No. 6," of Finland.
Lapid, 46, 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 film 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 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.
"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.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
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