‘The Bibi Files’ and 2 anti-Israel films make Oscar shortlists for best documentary & foreign film

The controversial documentary “The Bibi Files,” which features leaked footage from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s police interrogation, is banned from viewing in Israel and has no U.S. distribution. It is among the 15 movies shortlisted to receive an Oscar in the documentary films category.

The movie contains leaked, never-before-seen footage from the interrogations of Netanyahu is his corruption case, for which testimonies are ongoing at the moment.

It is banned in Israel for containing leaked material from ongoing police investigations, and Netanyahu unsuccessfully attempted to ban a first screening in Toronto in September.

The prime minister’s lawyer argued that one of the producers, Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker, was a “political opponent” of the prime minister and intended to use the documentary to “end the prime minister’s rule.”

Dov Gil-Har, a journalist working for state-sponsored outlet KAN News and who attended the screening, said the move “claims that the war in the Gaza Strip continues in order to save Netanyahu politically and from justice.”

The footage comes from police interrogations conducted between 2016 and 2018 and was leaked to Alex Gibney, the main producer of "The Bibi Files,” in 2023.

In the same category, the Norwegian-Palestinian production, “No Other Land,” was also shortlisted.

The documentary was produced by two Palestinians and two Israelis and shows alleged settler violence as well as the activism of two of the producers against the IDF’s demolition of illegal structures in the Judea region of Masafer Yatta, claiming the army’s actions to constitute an expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

No Israeli film has ever won the documentary films category, with the last to be nominated being "Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom," in 2015.

In the category of International Feature Film, the movie “From Ground Zero,” made the shortlist.

The anthology collects 22 short films, among them documentaries, fiction, animation and experimental films showing the situation of the residents of Gaza since Oct. 7 and the ensuing war.

An Israeli movie has never reached the shortlist stage. This year’s entry for International Feature Film was “Come Closer,” a film set in Tel Aviv and the Sinai peninsula, about “a troubled young woman who becomes obsessed with her deceased brother's girlfriend after his sudden death.”

Additionally, no Israeli film has ever won the International Feature Film category, with the last to be nominated being 2018’s “Footnote.”

The final five nominees for each category will be announced on January 17, while the awards ceremony will be held on March 2.