Director Nadav Lapid said his new film "Yes" about a musician asked to re-write the Israeli national anthem is a response to his country's "blindness" to suffering in Gaza.

Lapid has previously dissected his country's ills in "Synonyms", which won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2019, and "Ahed's Knee" (2021).

In "Yes", he portrays a society buried under its own "dark side" since Palestinian militants Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

"Blindness in Israel is unfortunately a fairly collective illness," the 50-year-old director told AFP at the Cannes festival where "Yes" premiered on Thursday.

Over nearly two and a half hours, it follows a musician named Y, who is commissioned by the authorities to rewrite the Israeli national anthem into a propaganda piece calling for the eradication of Palestinians.

"What happened on October 7, the level of horror and........

© Al Monitor