Culver City, CA (November 15, 2010) – The winner of the Golden Lion Award at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, Lebanon, a stunning debut feature film written and directed by Samuel Maoz, will be released on Blu-ray™ and DVD on January 18, 2011 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. This Sony Pictures Classics film will be available for an SLP of $38.96 for Blu-ray and $28.95 for DVD. Both versions will include a director’s commentary and a “making of†featurette.
Lebanon, which Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out NY called “the Das Boot of tank movies,†was chosen as an official selection of both the New York and Toronto 2009 Film Festivals.
Synopsis
The first Lebanon War – June, 1982. A lone tank is dispatched to search a hostile town that has already been bombarded by the Israeli Air Force.
Shmulik the gunner (Yoav Donat), Assi the commander (Itay Tiran), Herzl the loader (Oshri Cohen) and Yigal the driver (Michael Moshonov) are the tank’s crew, four 20-something boys who have never fought in a war and are now operating a killing machine. Though trying to remain brave, the boys are pushed to their mental limits as they struggle to survive in a situation they cannot contain, and try not to lose their humanity in the chaos of war.
Writer-director Samuel Maoz’s raw and visceral film is based on his own experiences as a twenty-year-old novice soldier serving in theIsraeli army during the 1982 Lebanon war. Using his own vivid recollections to bring us inside an Israeli tank during the first 24 hours of the invasion, Maoz restricts the film’s action entirely to the tank’s interior and shows us the outside world only – as the four young soldiers themselves see it – through the lens of a periscopic gun sight. The cathartic process of writing and directing Lebanon allowed Maoz to finally free himself of the events that he had experienced twenty-five years earlier.
BD/DVD BONUS FEATURES INCLUDE:
Commentary with Director Samuel Maoz
Notes on a War Film – The Making of Lebanon
Lebanon was written and directed by Samuel Maoz. Produced by Uri Sabag, Einat Bikel, Moshe Edery, Leon Edery, David Silber, Benjamina Mirnik and Ilann Girard. Starring Yaov Donat, Itay Tiran, Oshri Cohen, Michael Moshonov, Zohar Strauss, Dudu Tassa, Ashraf Barhom and Reymonde Amsellem.
The Blu-ray Disc version of Lebanon is BD-Liveâ„¢ enabled, allowing users to get connected and go beyond the disc via an Internet-connected Blu-ray player. Download exclusive content, register for rewards, give feedback through our survey and more!
Get rewarded for registering your Sony Blu-ray discs! The Sony Pictures Blu-ray Club rewards consumers in the U.S. for purchasing and registering BD-Live enabled Sony Blu-ray movies. Members can redeem accumulated points for cool Sony products, plus enter to win cash and prizes in daily sweepstakes and more. For details visit www.sonyrewards.com/bluray.