Beaufort
Directed by Joseph Cedar
Academy Award® NOMINEE BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
After 18 years dug into a heavily fortified mountain deep in occupied Lebanon, the last Israeli soldiers enduring constant bombardment at the site of the ancient crusader stronghold called Beaufort receive orders to abandon their posts, detonate the warren of bunkers in which they've tenuously clung to life and victory, and come home. Amid redoubled shelling from Hezbollah, the fort's brash, impossibly young commander Liraz (Oshri Cohen) struggles to keep himself and his men safe from a faceless enemy that would turn withdrawal into massacre, and transform a just cause into a lost cause.
An unusually dexterous ensemble cast and director Joseph Cedar's (Time of Favor) visionary combination of gritty objectivity, lucid sudden violence, and keen sensitivity to the tangle of terror, duty, and sacrifice common to soldiers of any era, results in "consistently gripping filmmaking" that "perfectly encapsulates ... the futility of war." (Indiewire). Suspenseful, poetic, and heartbreakingly transcendent, the Oscar® nominated Beaufort is "a haunting anti-war movie" (The New York Times) and "one of those once-in-a-decade war pictures that reminds us what's worthwhile about putting the ritualized barbarism of combat onscreen in the first place." (New York Sun)
2007 Israel 126 min. Color Letterboxed (1.85:1) Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
In Hebrew with optional English subtitles
a United King Films, Metro Communications, Movie Plus production
a film by JOSEPH CEDAR
BEAUFORT
starring OSHRI COHEN ITAY TIRAN ELI ELTONYO OHAD KNOLLER
director of photography OFER INOV
production designer MIGUEL MERKIN
sound mixer ASHI MILO
sound designer ALEX CLAUDE
film editor ZOHAR M. SELA
music by ISHAI ADAR
written by RON LESHEM and JOSEPH CEDAR
from the novel by RON LESHEM
executive producers Moshe Edery and Leon Edery produced by DAVID SILBER and DAVID MANDIL
directed by JOSEPH CEDAR
THE JOSHUA RABINOVICH TEL AVIV FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS - CINEMA PROJECT * KESHET * YES * CDI * UNITED KING FILMS * IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CINEMA INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION IN ISRAEL
© 2007 Beaufort Limited Partnership
Reviews
"A Movie of tremendous power.."'A' Rating Lisa Schwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"REALISTIC... INTENSE... VERGES ON THE SURREAL... One of the strongest examples yet of the fearless new wave that has made Israel's cinema a force on the international scene." Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"A HARROWING ISRAELI WAR DRAMA... Short on bombast and glory, long on fear and doubt." Steven Hunter, THE WASHINGTON POST
Awards
Best Director Berlin Film Festival
2007 Nominee for Best Foreign FIlm Academy Award
Official Selection Cannes Film Festival