Two Israeli filmmakers recently won awards for movies set in Israel, belying some of the tensions about the growing cultural boycott against the local filmmaking industry.

Israeli screenwriter and director Yuval Hadadi won the top prize at the 2025 Austin Film Festival in Texas for his film, “A Man Walks Down the Street,” which premiered at the festival Sunday.

Meyer Levinson-Blount, a debut filmmaker, won second place in the narrative category of the Student Academy Awards in New York for his film “Butcher’s Stain.”

The matter of being an Israeli-born director with a film set in Israel was a “non-issue,” said Hadadi, who has lived in New York for the last 35 years.

“I was told there might be issues, that Austin is a liberal student city, but none of that happened, and everyone knew the film was Israeli,” he said.

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Amid a wave of anti-Israel sentiment globally over the war in Gaza, Israelis from across the entertainment world have complained of being increasingly blackballed or having their works boycotted or subject to protests. Filmmakers in particular have reported difficulty being accepted at international festivals and events.


Filmmaker Yuval Hadadi at the Austin Film Festival on October 25, 2026 (Courtesy Mark Moskowitz)

In September, thousands of Hollywood industry professionals signed a letter pledging to boycott Israeli film institutions and anyone associated with those organizations due to the war in Gaza.

While protests have caused some Israelis to avoid appearing at festivals, the practical extent of the boycott remains unknown and there have also been counter letters and statements from pro-Israel voices.

Hadadi said that ahead of the Austin festival, he promoted his work with local Jewish and Israeli communities in the Texas city to ensure his screening had a full audience.

He also got in touch with the local LGBTQ community to support “A Man Walks Down the Street,” which is about a gay middle-aged man returning to Tel Aviv for a visit after 30 years abroad.

But none of his fears about pro-Palestinian protesters or calls for a boycott came to pass.

“They just looked at the story, at the film,” he said. “They don’t really care, and that’s how you want it to be, not highlighting the fact that it comes from a region that has controversy.”

Hadadi’s film, starring Angel Bonanni and Uri Banai, was awarded the Narrative Feature Award at the annual festival, which places a large focus on screenwriting.

Hadadi remarked that his movie was the only film to win an award that did not have an English script.

This is Hadadi’s second feature film, after 2019’s “15 years.”  He began working on the script five years ago.

Hadadi was already getting production lined up before October 7, 2023, but assumed it would be called off as Israel reeled following the unprecedented Hamas-led invasion and massacre.

Instead, his producer pushed forward, with “A Man Walks Down the Street” one of the first movies to be filmed in Israel after the war erupted.

“I had tons of actors auditioning, including some coming from reserve duty,” said Hadadi.

Artifacts of the war and of life in Israel in 2024 are visible in small ways in the movie, he noted, like a yellow ribbon for the Gaza hostages tied to the handlebars of a bike in one scene.

With the Austin win under his belt, the filmmaker hopes “A Man Walks Down the Street,” which was turned down at other festivals, will now have an easier time getting accepted.

He is unsure if the film was turned down elsewhere because of its Israeli origins, but is aware that being Israeli makes getting in an uphill battle.

“I know other [Israeli] friends who have brilliant films that aren’t being accepted,” he said.

“A Man Walks Down the Street” is expected to be released in theaters in Israel in 2026.

Making the cut

Unlike Hadadi’s film, Levinson-Blount’s “Butcher’s Stain” uses the Hamas attack and hostage crisis to drive tensions at heart of the movie.

Levinson-Blount, a film student at Tel Aviv University, said he was stunned when he found out his movie was nominated for the Student Academy Awards, eventually winning the Silver Medal in the narrative category.

The award was presented earlier this month by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Oscars.

The film follows Samir, an Arab butcher in Tel Aviv, who sets out on a journey to prove his innocence after he’s accused of removing posters of the hostages.

The plot was inspired by Levinson-Blount’s experience working at a supermarket in Israel in the fall of 2023.

“The supermarket is a place where all kinds of people work and shop,” said Levinson-Blount, who immigrated to Israel from the United States about a decade ago. “It’s very, very low-income work and people with tough backgrounds work there.”

Intrigued by the tensions between the Israeli Jews and Arabs who worked together at the store, he saw the film as a way to tap into the question of discrimination post-October 7.


Meyer Levinson-Blount, right, director of the Student Academy Award-winning ‘Butcher’s Stain’ with the film’s producer, Oron Caspi, at the October 2025 award ceremony in New York. (Courtesy)

“People were open to seeing this film,” said Levinson-Blount about screening his movie during the awards weekend. What resonated for him was a marked lack of hostility.

“People really wanted to know more about the subject,” he said. “Some of them used to have a connection with Israel and don’t today, and they just seemed sad about it. They felt the film was a way of reconnecting.”

The film has been submitted to the regular Oscars and could be nominated for best short.

Meanwhile, Levinson-Blount is planning on screening the film in Israel, bringing it to Arab villages, and holding discussions.

“Ultimately, it does open people up to talking about things,” he said.