Director’s Statement

The idea for Oxygen was born during a war more than a decade ago, when my son said to me, “Don’t worry, Mom. I run really fast—so when I’m a soldier, I’ll run between the bullets and I won’t die.” That haunting image stayed with me and eventually became the seed of this film. Filmed in July 2023, just three months before the current horrific war, Oxygen has since become heartbreakingly—and politically—relevant. At its core, Oxygen is a story of war and love, of motherhood and rebellion.

Anat, the protagonist, undergoes an awakening that begins in the womb—an awakening that is both personal and political. On the national level, she evolves from a normative Israeli mother who accepts the destiny imposed upon her—to raise sons for war—into a woman who dares to resist it, refusing to hand her son over to killing and to being killed. Oxygen tells the story of a mother who rebels against the Israeli ethos of heroism through a radical maternal act of resistance. On an inner, universal level, Anat transforms from a symbiotic mother, bound to her son, into one who understands that true love means letting him go—freeing him from the collective demand for sacrifice, but also from herself. Oxygen is not only about a mother saving her son, but also about a mother who fights him.

The film carries a pacifist spirit that resonates with Israel’s growing refusal and anti-war movement, daring to imagine a world in which, if there are no soldiers, there will be no war.