2019 spy thriller movie written. The movie stars Chris Evans as an Israeli Mossad agent who runs a covert operation to rescue Ethiopian-Jewish refugees from Sudan to secure haven in Israel. Directed by Gideon Raff. Michael K. Williams, Haley Bennett, Alessandro Nivola, Michiel Huisman, Chris Chalk, Greg Kinnear, and Ben Kingsley are in supporting roles.

The movie is loosely based mostly on the occasions of Israel’s Operation Moses and Operation Joshua in 1984-1985, during which the Mossad covertly rescued Jewish-Ethiopian refugees who suffered from persecutions in Sudan in Africa, by smuggling them all of the way to the safety of Israel, using a base on the as soon as-abandoned vacation resort of Arous Village on the Sudanese Pink Sea coast, about 70km (forty three miles) north of Port Sudan.[2]

The Crimson Sea Diving Resort premiered on the San Francisco Jewish Movie Festival on July 28, 2019, and was released on July 31, 2019, by Netflix. Essential response to the film was predominantly damaging, whereas audiences had been mixed to constructive.[3]

Plot
[edit]
Kebede Bimro, an Ethiopian Jew loosely based on Ferede Aklum, works with the Israeli Mossad agent Ari Levinson to evacuate Jewish-Ethiopian refugees to Israel through Sudan. He proposes to Israeli intelligence officer Ethan Levin a plan that would allow him to evacuate significantly extra refugees: rent the Pink Sea Diving Resort, an abandoned Sudanese coastal lodge, and run it as a front to facilitate shifting refugees out of the country. Ari realizes that his skill to function in Ethiopia could be improved if he had a cowl exercise that may give him a motive for having a constructing and automobiles. The unorthodox plan is reluctantly authorized, and Ari recruits his former Mossad colleagues, Rachel Reiter, Jake Wolf, Max Rose, and Sammy Navon, to assist him.

Shortly after the crew arrives in Sudan, the brochures that they had printed inspire actual vacationers to begin arriving on the resort. Though hosting visitors was not initially part of the plan, Levinson realizes the tourists will provide cover for the crew’s operations, so the team runs the resort as a reliable business whereas concurrently evacuating refugees to a waiting Israeli ship off the coast. The plan is initially profitable, and a number of extraction operations are carried out, however the Sudanese Colonel Abdel Ahmed learns of Bimro after interrogating and then killing a gaggle of refugees. Ahmed visits the resort to analyze however doesn’t uncover the refugee operation.

One night time, Ari and Sammy are arrested after an evacuation mission narrowly escapes from Sudanese troopers. They’re launched and return to the resort to find Levin awaiting them; he tells the group the mission has been compromised and that it is canceled.

Colonel Ahmed once more visits the resort, and Rachel is pressured to kill one in every of his males after the soldier discovers a group of refugees hiding there. Ari and his group transport the refugees to an abandoned British airfield. To evacuate them, Ari decides to perform a closing refugee extraction by cargo airplane with help from Walton Bowen, a CIA officer. The group and Bimro narrowly escape Ahmed and extract themselves and the refugees, landing at Ben Gurion Airport.

Cast
[edit]

Chris Evans as Ari Levinson

Michael K. Williams as Kabede Bimro

Haley Bennett as Rachel Reiter

Michiel Huisman as Jacob ‘Jake’ Wolf

Alessandro Nivola as Sammy Navon

Greg Kinnear as Walton Bowen

Ben Kingsley as Ethan Levin

Alex Hassell as Max Rose

Mark Ivanir as Barack Isaacs

Chris Chalk as Col. Abdel Ahmed

Alona Tal as Sarah Levinson

Manufacturing
[edit]
The Pink Sea Diving Resort is loosely based on the occasions of Operation Moses and Operation Joshua (jointly known as Operation Brothers), during which Ethiopian Jews were covertly moved from refugee camps in Sudan to Israel throughout the 1980s. The actual abandoned resort, the Arous Vacation Village on the Red Sea, was positioned roughly 70 kilometers from Port Sudan and was managed by Mossad operatives until 1985. The existence of these operations was first revealed in Gad Shimron’s 1998 e book Mossad Exodus: The Daring Undercover Rescue of the Lost Jewish Tribe,[4] although the movie will not be related to the ebook.[5]

In August 2015, Fox Searchlight purchased the rights for the movie. [6] Growth on the movie was first announced in March 2017, with Gideon Raff directing and writing the screenplay, and Chris Evans and Haley Bennett solid. Chris Chalk was forged on June 15.[10] Capturing occurred at the Cape Town Movie Studios in South Africa and Namibia. [9] In Might, Greg Kinnear, Alessandro Nivola, and Ben Kingsley had been added to the solid, with a filming begin date of June 22, 2017, established. [7][8] In April, Michael Ok. Williams joined the project. [11][12]

Release
[edit]
In February 2019, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the movie.[13] It had its world premiere at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on July 28, 2019.[14] It was launched on July 31, 2019.[15]

Reception
[edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has an approval ranking of 28% primarily based on forty evaluations, with a weighted common of 4.6/10. The website’s vital consensus reads, “The Pink Sea Diving Resort makes uninspired use of actual occasions, using thinly written characters to tell a narrative derailed by its personal good intentions.”[16] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 29 out of 100, based on evaluations from eight critics, indicating “generally unfavorable critiques”.[17]

The movie has been criticized for its white savior narrative, putting the focus on the Mossad agent reasonably than the Ethiopian refugees. [18] Likewise, the film reveals Mossad agent Ari Levinson as the one instigator of the evacuation plan, whereas in actual life, “the origins of Operation Brothers were also due in massive half to the efforts of activists from the Ethiopian Jewish neighborhood”. [5] The film additionally presents the Sudanese soldiers and authorities in a stereotypical method and barely explains the historic context, “never adequately representing the political situation that necessitated such an elaborate operation”. Variety wrote “it’s not possible to ignore how badly the film marginalizes the courageous Ethiopian refugees about whom it purports to care so deeply”[18] and regrets that the film doesn’t tell the story from the angle of Kabede leading his folks to the Promised Land.

^ “The Pink Sea Diving Resort”. IMDb. Retrieved April 12, 2020.

^ Berg, Raffi (April 18, 2018). “Crimson Sea Diving Resort: The holiday village run by spies”. BBC Information. Retrieved January 4, 2024.

^ “The Purple Sea Diving Resort | Rotten Tomatoes”. Rotten Tomatoes.

^ Shimron, Gad (2007). Mossad Exodus: The Daring Undercover Rescue of the Lost Jewish Tribe. Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 9789652294036.

^ a b Haynes, Suyin (August 1, 2019). “The True Story Behind ‘The Red Sea Diving Resort‘”. TIME. Retrieved April 13, 2025.

^ Dolsten, Josefin. “‘Homeland’ creator to direct movie on rescue of Ethiopian Jews”. The Times of Israel.

^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (March 20, 2017). “Chris Evans To Star In ‘Crimson Sea Diving Resort'”. Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the unique on March 21, 2017.

^ Kroll, Justin (March 20, 2017). “‘Lady on the Prepare’ Actress Haley Bennett in Talks to Star in ‘Pink Sea Diving Resort‘ (Exclusive)”. Variety.

^ Kroll, Justin (April 25, 2017). “Michael Okay. Williams Joins Chris Evans in True-Life Drama ‘Crimson Sea Diving Resort’ (Exclusive)”. Selection.

^ N’Duka, Amanda (June 12, 2017). “‘Gotham’s Chris Chalk Packs For ‘The Crimson Sea Diving Resort‘”. Deadline Hollywood.

^ Package, Borys (Could 10, 2017). “Greg Kinnear, Alessandro Nivola, Alex Hassell Be part of Mossad Spy Drama (Unique)”. The Hollywood Reporter.

^ “Productions Hosted” (PDF). Cape Town Film Studios. 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 8, 2021. Retrieved January 8, 2021.

^ N’Duka, Amanda (February 15, 2019). “Netflix Lands World Rights To ‘The Purple Sea Diving Resort’ Starring Chris Evans”. Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved February 15, 2019.

^ “The Red Sea Diving Resort”. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Retrieved July 7, 2019.

^ Trumbore, David (June 19, 2019). “Here’s What’s Coming to Netflix in July 2019”. Collider. Retrieved June 19, 2019.

^ “The Crimson Sea Diving Resort (2019)”. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved June 3, 2025.

^ “The Crimson Sea Diving Resort Reviews”. Metacritic. Retrieved November 12, 2022.

^ a b Debruge, Peter (July 29, 2019). “Movie Assessment: ‘The Red Sea Diving Resort‘”. Selection. Retrieved April 13, 2025.

The Purple Sea Diving Resort at IMDb

The Pink Sea Diving Resort on Netflix

Gideon Raff

Movies directed

The Killing Flooring (2007)

Practice (2008)

The Pink Sea Diving Resort (2019)

Television sequence created

Prisoners of Warfare (2010-12)

Tyrant (2014-16)

Dig (2015)

The Spy (2019)

Retrieved from “https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Red_Sea_Diving_Resort&oldid=1352919045”

2019 films

2010s spy thriller films

American spy thriller films

Films in regards to the Mossad

Movies directed by Gideon Raff

Films scored by Mychael Danna

Films set in 1979

Films set in 1980

Films set in 1981

Movies set in Sudan

Films about Jews and Judaism

English-language spy thriller films

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This web page was final edited on 7 Might 2026, at 01:23 (UTC).

The Pink Sea Diving Resort

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