''Image of Victory'' (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: תמונת הניצחון) is a 2021 Israeli

historical History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

war drama In film and television show, television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or docudrama, semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humour, humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional te ...

film directed by

Avi Nesher Avi Nesher (Hebrew language, Hebrew: אבי נשר; born 13 December 1952) is an Israeli film producer, film director, screenwriter and actor. Biography Avi Nesher was born and raised in Ramat Gan, Israel. The child of a Romanian-born diplomat ...

. The film includes a reenactment of the battle and subsequent loss of

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

Nitzanim Nitzanim () is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located between Ashkelon and Ashdod on the Nitzanim dunes, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. In it had a population of . History Nitzanim was established on 8 Decem ...

during Israel’s

War of Independence Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence or wars of liberation, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) ...

and is based on real events. The film was nominated for fifteen categories in the 2021 Ophir Awards and won three of them: Best Cinematography, Best Makeup, and Best Costume Design.

Plot

The story takes place between late 1947 and June 1948, and focuses mainly on the days before the Battle of Nitzanim and on the battle itself (7 June 1948), at the end of which Nitzanim is conquered by the Egyptian forces and the surviving defenders are taken prisoners. A young Egyptian journalist, Hassanin (Amir Khoury), accompanies an Egyptian volunteer fighting force heading to aid the Palestinian Arabs, as a director of a propaganda film to capture an "image of victory" of the Egyptian Army. They set camp the foot of the kibbutz within which the members, together with a platoon of the

Givati Brigade The 84th "Givati" Brigade () is an Israel Defense Forces infantry brigade formed in 1947. During the 1948 war, it was involved in capturing Palestinian villages in operations ''Hametz'', ''Barak'', and ''Pleshet''. Before Israel's 2005 ...

, prepare to defend.

Cast

Source:

Reception

Hannah Brown in a review by ''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...

'' called the film "a great anti-war epic". She praised it as "not so much a political movie as an existential statement about the price paid, quite literally, for the image of the title. Image of Victory is the crowning achievement of Nesher’s career and it is the rare movie that may change the way you look at the world." Leslie Felperin of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' was more critical, writing that "A film that tries to empathise with everybody runs the risk of pleasing no one, and no doubt there will be viewers enraged by this or that detail or unspoken perspective, but the ambition is nevertheless pretty impressive and on the whole well executed."

References

External links

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"East Bay Jewish film fest: An Egyptian journalist, a young mother and a defeat in early Israel"
Dan Pine, 9 March 2022,

The Jewish News of Northern California ''J. The Jewish News of Northern California'', formerly known as ''Jweekly'', is a biweekly print newspaper in Northern California, with its online edition updated daily. It is owned and operated by San Francisco Jewish Community Publications I ...

{{Avi Nesher 2021 films 2021 war drama films 2021 multilingual films Israeli war drama films Israeli historical drama films 2020s Hebrew-language films 2020s Arabic-language films 2020s war drama films Films directed by Avi Nesher Israeli multilingual films Arabic-language Israeli films Hebrew-language war drama films