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Lebanon - Oshri Cohen, Reymond Amsalem, Yoav Donat, Samuel Maoz

Threat advisory: Elevated - Significant risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

The First Lebanon War - June, 1982. A lone tank is dispatched to search a hostile town that has already been bombarded by the Israeli Air Force. What seems to be a simple mission gradually spins out of control.

Shmuel (Yoav Donat) the gunner, Assi (Itay Tiran) the commander, Herzel (Oshri Cohen) the loader and Yigal (Michael Moshonov) the driver are the tank's crew, four 20-something boys who have never fought in a war and are now operating a killing machine. Though trying to remain brave, the boys are pushed to their mental limits as they struggle to survive in a situation they cannot contain, and try not to lose their humanity in the chaos of war.

Theatrical propaganda posters

Target demographic movie keyword propaganda

Film Israel war Lebanon tank mission Army 1982 biography true Israeli soldier Hebrew urban fighting paratroopers

Persons of interest

Reymond Amsalem .... Assna
Ashraf Barhom
Oshri Cohen .... Herzel
Yoav Donat .... Shmulik
Guy Kapulnik
Michael Moshonov .... Yigal
Zohar Shtrauss .... Gamil
Dudu Tassa
Itay Tiran .... Asi
Samuel Maoz .... Screenwriter
Samuel Maoz .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Lebanon official movie sites:

Australia
International

Lebanon film production notes
Lebanon movie trailers:

Awards and film festivals:

Awards of the Israeli Film Academy 2009: Won: Best Art Direction (Ariel Roshko), Best Cinematography (Giora Bejach), Best Sound (Alex Claude, David Lis), Best Supporting Actor (Zohar Shtrauss); Nominated: Best Actor (Yoav Donat), Best Director (Samuel Maoz), Best Editing (Arik Leibovitch), Best Film, Best Screenplay (Samuel Maoz), Best Supporting Actress (Reymond Amsalem)
Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography 2009: Won: Golden Frog Best Cinematography (Giora Bejach)
Thessaloniki Film Festival 2009: Won: Human Values Award (Samuel Maoz)
Venice Film Festival 2009: Won: Golden Lion (Samuel Maoz), Nazareno Taddei Award (Samuel Maoz), SIGNIS Award - Honourable Mention (Samuel Maoz)

NB: Arabic, English, French and Hebrew language dialogue with English language subtitles
Studios and distributors:

Rialto Entertainment

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

War sucks, being a conscript sucks, being stuck in a rattle bucket out of which you can't see sucks, being a target sucks, being an Israeli sucks, being shot at sucks, being a soldier sucks. The only thing worse than being a soldier is being a civilian. That really sucks. At least soldiers get to have guns; civilians just have donkeys with which to defend themselves.

This film is about one of Israel's wars with its neighbours, in this case, Lebanon. That's not particularly significant because most of the film takes place in the tank. It would be claustrophobic if the word wasn't so big. It's as close to a submarine movie as you can get on land. For your dramatic pleasure, everyone who appears in this film is nuts: overbearing, underbearing, bearing up, unbearable. That's the good aspect. The not so good aspect is that sometimes the camera wanders out of the tank, releasing your sense of claustrophobia, tension, struggle and hardship. These sorts of films are always better when you can't get out (see Alien).

Very entertaining, but.

The Israel, war movie Lebanon is directed by Samuel Maoz and stars Oshri Cohen, Reymond Amsalem, Yoav Donat.