Israel, 2008, 125 min.

Director: Joseph Cedar
Writer: Joseph Cedar, Ron Leshem
Producer: Moshe Edery
Cast: Oshri Cohen, Itay Tiran, Eli Eltonyo, Ami Weinberg
Release: 2008/01/18
Winner for Best Director at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, BEAUFORT chronicles the final days of an Israeli army unit’s tense, painful withdrawal from a strategic 12th century fortress near the Lebanese border in 2000, marking the end of nearly two decades of controversial occupation. Based on a true story, director Joseph Cedar confronts the difficult questions raised by Israel’s military strategy in Lebanon but also, more broadly, the sacrifices of young soldiers and the futility of war.

BEAUFORT tells the story of LIRAZ LIBERTI, the 22 year-old outpost commander, and his troops in the months before Israel pulled out of Lebanon. This is not a story of war, but of retreat. This is a story with no enemy, only an amorphous entity that drops bombs from the skies while terrified young soldiers must find a way to carry out their mission until their very last minutes on that mountaintop. As LIRAZ lays the explosives which would destroy that very same structure that his friends had died defending, he witnesses the collapse of all he's been taught as an officer, and his soldier's mental and physical disintegration.