After the success on Kan 11: The Israeli film continues to conquer the world
The documentary work that moved the country won the grand prize at a prestigious film festival in the United States and continues its successful journey on the way to the Ophir Awards ceremony.
The Israeli documentary film "Sun Bay" (Mifratz HaShemesh), directed by Ido Weisman, which was broadcast on Kan 11 at the beginning of 2026 and is currently available for viewing on Kan BOX and the Kan 11 YouTube channel, continues its journey of success in Israel and around the world.
On Tuesday, the film won the Grand Prize for Feature Documentary at the Rhode Island International Film Festival in the United States.
The Rhode Island Festival is a long-standing and significant festival in the independent and international film scene in the United States, presenting every year about one hundred international films selected from thousands of submissions from around the world.
The festival's jury noted in the award justification:
"Weisman succeeds, through a sensitive and precise cinematic language, in turning a local story into a work with universal significance, dealing with alienation, loneliness, belonging, and the question of what makes our lives happy. It is an intimate, honest, and thought-provoking film that stays with the viewer even after it ends."
The win at the Rhode Island Festival joins a series of achievements for "Sun Bay," including the Best Debut Film award at the Docaviv Festival and the Best Debut Film and Music awards from the Documentary Forum 2025. Currently, the film has also been selected for the final five nominees for the 2026 Ophir Awards in the full-length documentary category.
At the same time, "Sun Bay" continues its international festival tour, and this coming September it is expected to participate in the Moscow International Documentary Film Festival DOKer.
"Sun Bay" documents the daily lives of three people living in a trailer park in Eilat. Through intimate and non-judgmental documentation, the film reveals moments of grace and honesty, raising painful issues in Israeli society: military post-trauma, detachment from the family unit, coping with loneliness, and a sense of social invisibility on the margins of the periphery.
