“Waltz With Bashir” is an animated movie directed by Ari Folman, which was honored as the best movie of the year by the National Society of Film Critics. These critics’ honors helped the Academy Awards, or the Oscars, from next month to do their best choice. The Oscars are the most important film awards which are given out on the last Sunday from February by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Folman needed four years to complete the film, which is an international co-production between Germany, France and Israel, dealing with the Sabra and Shatila massacre from 1982.

The animated documentary entered the competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival Film from 2008 and it had received a lot of critical acclaim after its premiere. Yet, the movie lost the prizes during the competition, in spite of the fact that many predicted the opposite.

But “Waltz With Bashir” won six awards of the Israeli Film Academy, among which the Best Picture. Featured in the 46th New York Film Festival, the movie had its premiere in the United States on October 2, 2008. Set as an entry for Best Animated Feature, Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards from February, “Waltz With Bashir” represents a historic picture of an important real event.

Folman somehow connected the movie to the experience he had been going through in 1982, at only 19 years old, when he was sent as an infantry soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces. Two years ago, he met a friend from back then, who told him about the nightmares he had about the period of the Lebanon War.

The movie so tells the story of Folman, who doesn’t seem to remember anything his friend tells him, but has a vision about the night when the Sabra and Shatila massacre took place. From this moment, “Waltz With Bashir” goes on by representing Folman’s discussions with friends, a psychologist and the reporter Ron Ben-Yishai who was in Beirut at the same time.

The title of the movie represents a picture Folam describes as being the commander of his infantry unit at the time, who takes a heavy machine gun and starts to dance an incredible waltz under the posters of Bashir Gemayel.