(JTA) – For the first time, Israel has selected a film entirely in Arabic to represent the country at the Academy Awards. “Sand Storm” won six Ophir Awards – Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars given out by the Israeli Academy of Film and Television – on Thursday, Sept. 22, including for best film. The winner of the best film award is entered as Israel’s submission for the foreign film award at the next year’s Oscars. A family drama set in the Bedouin community – a largely poor and often marginalized subset of the Israeli population – “Sand Storm” is the feature debut for Elite Zexer, a Jewish Israeli. At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic section. “Sand Storm” was released in the United States this week, starting at New York City’s Film Forum. Israeli films have been nominated for the best foreign film Oscar 10 times but have never won the award.