Asma Bseiso 2009 docu 46 min.
I am Ghazza was filmed shortly after the 2008 attack on Gaza. Knowing that media coverage of the attack only told a small part of what was happening, Beseiso left Amman in February 2009 and headed to her parents’ hometown in Gaza. Her film addresses the social and psychological impacts of the war on the people of Gaza, particularly its children, through the testimony of Dr. Eyad Sarraj, a leading psychotherapist. The film imparts some of the many individual stories not covered in the media’s account of this devastating war. www.youtube.com
Mona Jaridi – 2007 docu 60 min.
I Am In Jerusalem explores life in occupied Jerusalem through the eyes of an elevenyearold boy named Abdullah. When Abdullah visits Jerusalem for the first time, the film follows him as he encounters people of various religions, ages, and professions, having spontaneous conversations with each of them. Those he meets express their thoughts about Jerusalem. At one point Abdullah tries to enter the Al Aqsa Mosque in order to pray but is prevented from doing so by Israeli forces. In being deprived of this basic right, he begins to experience the harsh realities of life in occupied Jerusalem. Mona Jaridi’s film provides an intimate portrait of everyday life in Jerusalem through Palestinian eyes. As such it also points to a growing sadness as young Abdullah comes to realise the extent of the occupation’s impact on his liberties. I Am In Jerusalem won first prize at the 13th Arab Radio and Television Union Festival in Tunisia.
Shanim Sarif 2007 fiction 85 min.
2008 British romantic drama film directed by Shamim Sarif. Based on the novel of the same name, it tells the story of a London-based Jordanian of Palestinian descent, Tala, who is preparing for an elaborate wedding when a turn of events causes her to have an affair, and subsequently fall in love, with another woman, Leyla, a British Indian. The film stars Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth.
I Can’t Think Straight was produced by Enlightenment Productions and distributed in the United States by Regent Releasing and Here! Films. It was released in different regions between 2008 and 2009.[3] The DVD was released on 4 May 2009.
The lead actresses, Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth, also star in the 2007 lesbian–theme historical drama by Shamim Sarif, The World Unseen.
Plot
In the upper echelons of traditional Middle Eastern society, wealthy Christian Palestinians Reema and Omar prepare for the marriage of their visiting daughter Tala to Hani in Jordan. But back at work in London, Tala encounters Leyla, a young British Indian Muslim woman who is dating Tala’s best friend Ali. Tala sees something unique in the artless, clumsy, sensitive Leyla who secretly works to become a writer. And Tala’s forthright challenges to Leyla’s beliefs begins a journey of self-awareness for Leyla. After a weekend getaway into the countryside, Tala and Leyla sleep together and the two women begin to fall in love. However, Tala’s own sense of duty and cultural restraint cause her to pull away from Leyla and fly back to Jordan where the preparations for an ostentatious wedding are well under way.
As family members descend and the wedding day approaches, the pressure mounts until Tala finally cracks and extricates herself. Back in London, Leyla is heartbroken but learns to break free of her own self-doubt and her mother’s expectations, ditching Ali and being honest with her parents about her sexuality. When Ali and Leyla’s feisty sister, Yasmin, help try to get Tala and Leyla together again, Tala finds that her own preconceptions of what love can be is the final hurdle she must jump to win Leyla back. . www.youtube.com
by Felipe Roa Pilar, docu 17 min. 2017 , Producers: Issa Shamali and Raja Zaal and support Filmlab
Mohamad lives in Al Am’ari Refugee Camp in Ramallah with his family. His attachment to the camp throughout his life has created a high sense of home and family.
Jean-Luc Godard – Jean Pierre Gorin – Anne Marie Meiville 1974 docu 60 min.
Made as part of the “Dziga Vertov group,” this controversial and rarely screened experimental film was commissioned by the PLO in 1967 and originally titled Until Victory. Following the defeat in the Six Day War, the film was radically transformed, becoming a meditation on how cinema records history, and marking the beginning of Godard’s radical video period. Against the back of post1968 Paris, the film contrasts a French family (“Here”) with an impressionstic portrait of a Palestine (“Elsewhere”) reflected and distorted by television, books and pictures. “A thoughtful and provocative essay on… the problems of recording history and of making political statements on film…The results are a rare form of lucidity and purity” – Chicago Reader – Arts & Entertainment www.youtube.com
Abu-Assad, docudrama 98 min, Palestina, Nederland, Qatar, United Arab Emirates,
Arabisch gesproken en Engelse (ook NL?) ondertitels. Release: waarschijnlijk maart 2016
There may be a familiar rags-to-riches tone to Hany Abu-Assad’s uplifting film, but he manages to make so much more in this film about the real-life story of Palestinian Mohammad Assaf who won Arab Idol in 2013 and became a hero for his country. The film focuses as much on his early days – set against the brutal backdrop of life in Gaza and the illness of his sister – as it does on the challenge Assaf has in trying to take part in the Idol try-outs in Egypt. Once the competition starts, Abu-Assad cleverly balances the feel-good success with the harsh realities of Assaf’s life. It is a beautifully staged and compassionate film – plus there are some lovely songs. See the trailer www.youtube.com
NB
Onze Cinema Palestina Werkgroep heeft met co-producrer September Film afgesproken om begin januari contact op te nemen over het uitwisselen van goede ideëen voor het uitbrengen van deze film in Nederland.
by Yafa Attef – Jenin
After 30 years friends of Asmaa Alanzawi, a 16 years old young girl from Jenin، narrate their story as detainees’ girls suffered in the prison and how one moths later after they were released Asmaa committed a suicide in 1983. In this way she was able to reveal an Israeli occupation plan to make girls to collaborate with them through hairdresser Salon
Compilatie van shorts op youtube: Palestinian Women’s Oral History (2016 of 2017) V
www.youtube.com
Layali Kilani – 2008 fiction 3 min.
Shown at the 2012 London Palestine Film Festival as part of “The Spring of Young Palestinian Women Filmmakers”, a programme guest curated by Shashat, the Palestinian film NGO: If U Say Yes Or If U Say No is a story of hope, inspiration, and talent. A young girl dreams of flying and becoming free through dance, escaping from closed rooms and closed lives. The film was produced as part of a Shashat and Goethe Institute training programme for young women filmmakers, inviting them to tackle questions of gender perception in Palestinian society.
Mario Rizzi – 2006 fiction 15 min.
Ali Akilah is 96 years old and today lives in Amman. He was born and lived in Lifta, the Palestinian village whose area today corresponds to West and North Jerusalem. He graduated in Medicine in Beirut and worked as a doctor in Haifa until 1948. On one screen of this twoscreen video piece, he recalls personal events of his life, mainly connected with living in Palestine before the Nakba. The feeling of “permanent impermanence” which permeates his words is strengthened by the images on the other screen: images of a group of youth, working together to dismantle a “temporary” road block in Izbet Altabeeb, near Qalqiliya, in the presence of a growing number of Israeli soldiers. Inspired by Giorgio Agamben’s writing on the “state of exception”, Rizzi’s piece was shot over 4 months while the artist held a residency at the Al Ma’amal Foundation from Contemporary Art in Jerusalem, Palestine.
Manar Zoabi – 2005 fiction 3 min.
Manar Zoabi’s performance piece is a visually powerful contemplation on the artist’s imposition of her hopes and passions upon that ‘blank space’ that confronts her. Finding herself caught ‘in between’ her own projections and those that precede and constrain them, forces her to consider how total transformation might be achieved.
Martin Ginestie, docu 5 min. UK, 2015
The rise and fall of the Middle East peace process in photos, to the rhythms of Beethoven’s 7th symphony played by the London Symphony Orchestra. French filmmaker Martin Ginestie arranged the imressive images by subject and chronologically, whicht strengthens the effect of repetition: the repetitive images are parallel to the ongoing impasse in the peace process. We see flashes of Yasser Arafat shaking hands with world leaders like Bill Clinton, men throwing stones, blood in the streets, exploding city centers and Arafat being laid to rest. Then the tragedy starts all over again, now with different main actors. Now Palestinian president Abbas shakes hands with Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Nevertheless bombs keep ravaging cities and destroying houses, with refugee camps as a consequence.
Sara Saber / Narrative / UAE / 2013 / 18 mins
Two characters a widow and her daughter fill their lives with poetry and art, when life was easier in the past and art was much more appreciated. Twenty years later, the daughter decides to leave the house. The mother then sells the family history yet dies shortly afterwards. www.youtube.com
Monika Borgman – 2009 docu 52 min.
In Place: 4 Returnees from the Lebanese Civil Wars is the latest documentary outcome of expansive research conducted into perpetrators, memory, and violence under the auspices of the Umam Centre for Documentation and Research in Beirut. Directors Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim (Massaker) offer viewers a kaleidoscopic view of the varied conflicts and actors involved in Lebanon’s civil wars. The film revolves around four enigmatic interviews, each a separate “act” in the drama of these wars. Assaad Chaftari tells of his remorse over serving as a senior intelligence official in the Lebanese Forces. An anonymous Amal Movement fighter relates his experiences kidnapping people. Elias Atallah, now a prominent politician, speaks about violence and its use in politics. Another anonymous Amal fighter shares his memories of fighting in two overlooked wars: the War between Hezbollah and Amal, and the War of the Camps against the Palestinians. Wars fated each of these people in vastly different ways. Former leaders continue to hold respectable positions. Their confidence shines through in their interviews. In contrast, former militia “grunts” continue to hold marginalized positions, giving furtive interviews under the cover of anonymity.
Nadia Johanne Kabalan, docu 15 min. 2014.
This short film explores the creation process of recent works by the Jerusalem-born Palestinian artist Steve Sabella. Having witnessed the construction of the Separation Wall in Palestine, Sabella shares his views on the entanglements between art and politics that influence his work, which is characterised by fluidity, ongoing renewal and conversion. While the series Metamorphosis (2012) reveals the artist’s transformation after an internal and external conflict rooted in his experimence of occupation, 38 days of re-collection (2013-2014) documents the excavation of a forgotten and re-imagined history of Jerusalem. www.youtube.com
by Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind (at Berlinale’s Forum Expanded section).
Palestine / UK / Denmark / Qatar 2015, 29 min, cinescope, color, Arabic with English subtitles
Content
A narrative resistance group makes underground deposits of elaborate porcelain – suggested to belong to an entirely fictional civilization. Their aim is to influence history and support future claims to their vanishing lands.
In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain resides in the cross-section between sci-fi, archaeology and politics. Combining live motion and CGI, the film explores the role of myth for history, fact and national identity.
The directors attend Berlinale from February 10th till 16th.
www.youtube.com View the trailer.
World Sales + Press: mec film. contact: Irit Neidhardt, irit@mecfilm.de” irit@mecfilm.de
Ali Nassar 2003 fiction 106 min.
A folk legend that spread through Palestinian villages during the days of Ottoman rule tells of a mysterious man who kidnaps naughty children. Ahmad, with his unexplained secrecy and unusual dress, is suspected of being just such a kidnapper. Yet, there is good reason for his behaviour his brother Khalil, a refugee from Lebanon, has snuck back into the village. Nassar’s film, while scarcely showing a physical Israeli presence, offers an extraordinary view of the diffuse emotional violence of the conflict, capable of tearing families, lovers and whole villages apart. Winner: Special Jury Award – Jerusalem Film Festival, 2003.
Hanna Musleh 2004 docu 45 min.
‘In the Spider’s Web’ was produced by Ramallahbased Human Rights organisation, Al Haq, in order to provide a visual overview of collective punishment as it affects the daily lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The film tells many stories, but focuses on two in particular those of a woman in Nablus and another in Hebron. Each of them talks of the impact that the compounded measures of intimidation (curfews, closures) and other collective penalties has on their lives. This powerful film directly confronts the audience with the connections between Israeli violations of international law, and the social consequences suffered by many women, some of whom end up blamed for their own plight. More broadly, Musleh’s film highlights the impact that collective punishment has had and continues to have on an entire civilian population. www.youtube.com
Alexandre Goetschmann – Guy Davidi 2006 docu 30 min.
In the shadow of the disengagement from Gaza, west of Ramallah, a new citysettlement is under construction, Kiriyat Sefer. In the early hours of the morning, construction workers from a neighbouring Palestinian village walk towards another day of work. Unemployed since the early days of the Second Intifada and drowned by financial debts, these men are forced to work, against their own conscience, on the settlement expanding onto their own village’s lands. In a day’s work, with scarce time for rest, words tossed into the air open a window on the sentiments of the workers for the land they still cherish. This inner struggle of the workers remains silent given the awful paradox of their situation. Just as their employment sustains their impoverished families, it supplies the occupation with the cheap and immediate source of labour that allows the construction of the settlements and the wall, and hence the destruction of their children’s livelihoods. www.youtube.com
Anais Barbeon Lavallette 2012 fiction 100 min.
Canadese arts woont in Jeruzalem en werkt in Ramallah. Ze raakt steeds meer verscheurd tussen twee werelden, verbeeld in de wereld van de Israëlische buurvrouwsoldaat en de Palestijnse zwangere vrouw, maar kiest uiteindelijk, door wat zij meemaakt, voor de Palestijnen. speelfilm, ego/docu. www.youtube.com
Khales Jarrar 2012 docu 70 min.
The checkpoint is closed: “Detour, detour!” shouts a taxi driver, announcing the beginning of yet another uncertain search for a way around the barriers curtailing Palestinian movement in the West Bank. Infiltrators is a visceral “road movie” that chronicles the daily travails of Palestinians of all backgrounds as they seek routes through, under, around, and over a bewildering matrix of barriers. Following this high stakes “game” of cat and mouse with a handheld video camera, Khaled Jarrar’s debut documentary was the standout success at the 2012 Dubai International Film Festival, winning the Muhr Arab Documentary Prize, the Special Jury Prize, and the International Critics Prize. vimeo.com
‘The Infiltrators’ directed by Khaled Jarrar (Palestine, 2012, documentary, 70 minutes). Synopsis: The checkpoint is closed: “Detour, detour!” a taxi driver shouts, announcing the beginning of yet another uncertain search for a way around the barriers curtailing Palestinian movement in the West Bank. Infiltrators is a visceral “road movie” that chronicles the daily travails of Palestinians of all backgrounds as they…
This drama is the directorial feature film debut of Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass (Munich (2005), Paradise Now (2005), The Syrian Bride (2006), The Visitor (2008), Pomegranates and Myrrh (2008), The Lemon Tree (2009), Amreeka (2009), Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2010), Miral (2011), among many other films).
The film is structured around the endeavors of Hajar (Hafsia Herzi) to carve out an independent life for herself. She is studying art in Haifa where she has shacked up with Matthew (Tom Payne), a young British teacher. She returns to her village for a family wedding and, unable to dissemble, tells the truth to her grandfather, the patriarch Khalil (Yussef Abu Warda) who responds angrily, calling her a slut – he has long favored the claims of her cousin Ali (G. A. Wasi).
Khalil has three sons, all of whom provide sub-plots: Majd (Makram Khoury), a heavily indebted businessman who is marrying off his daughter, Marwan (Ali Suleiman), a doctor married to a Christian woman who discovers that he is infertile, and Ahmad (Ashraf Barhom) who is standing for election as village mayor while cheating on his wife with a Jewish woman.
Among the numerous female roles the most notable is played by Abbass herself as Samira, Majd’s wife, an embittered woman who has long since given up the struggle for her own independence and now sees no reason to help Hajar achieve hers.
This all makes for dense plotting but Abbass handles the material confidently, moving the action forward briskly in a succession of brief scenes with a longer wedding sequence at the heart of the film. Perhaps the best scenes are the quieter ones, such as when Hajar sits at Khalil’s hospital bedside (he’s in a coma, having suffered a stroke), kissing his hand as she tells him that she needs him, or the moment near the close when Ali sees Hajar off, wishing her well for the future, his heart breaking because he knows that all hope of her is lost.
Antoine Heberlé’s fluid cinematography adds to the attractions of this deeply felt movie with striking city shots seen at night (presumably Haifa, though parts of the film were shot in Turkey) and aerial views of northern Israel’s rugged hillsides.
Trailer: www.youtube.com
Francesco Cannito – Luca Cusani 2008 docu 54 min.
Ghadir dreams that at last someone will buy her some running shoes. Nader trains while hoping that a missile doesn’t land on him. Zakia hasn’t got a permit from the military authorities to get to the swimming pool. These are the athletes belonging to the Palestinian squad who depart Jericho in July 2008 to take part in the Beijing Olympic games…. Inshallah, God willing, because many difficulties must be overcome before reaching China. First and foremost, the difficulty of competing for a state that doesn’t formally exist yet, Palestine. And then the difficulty of competing for one that doesn’t have the means to support its athletes. Inshallah Beijing is a candid portrait of these young athletes and their dreams as they leave their homes for the first time to prepare at training facilities thousands of miles away in unfamiliar surrounds. www.youtube.com
by Darine Hotait, documentary 15 min. USA 2016 Arabic/English with English subtitles.Two Arab American women in New York City fall in love, argue home and identity, engage in a chess battle, and express themselves through the power of the spoken word. Hal, an Arab American poet belonging to the Palestinian diaspora in New York City, meets Moun, a free-spirited chess sales girl. Their brief love affair challenges their understanding of what makes home. vimeo.com
by Ziad Doueiri, fiction 110 min, Lebanon 2017
Langauge Arabic (Lebanese and Palestinian accents
Producers Jean Bréhat, Rachid Bouchareb, Julie Gayet, Nadia Turencev
Production company Ezekiel Films
Trailer: www.youtube.com
In today’s Beirut, an insult blown out of proportions finds Toni, a Lebanese Christian, and Yasser, a Palestinian refugee, in court. From secret wounds to traumatic revelations, the media circus surrounding the case puts Lebanon through a social explosion, forcing Toni and Yasser to reconsider their lives and prejudices.
by Ameen Nayfeh, 2014 drama, 12 min
As Malik struggles to prepare for his high school examinations, he develops two habits to escape his reality—listening to the radio and secretly observing his beautiful neighbor.
by Robert Krieg, docu 52min. German Federal Republic 1989
A film about Palestinian day-to-day life and resistance, about self-organization in people’s committees and the installation of self-sustaining economic structures: Intifada – On the Way to Palestine documents the uprising in the West Bank and the Gaza-Strip, which begun in 1987. It was aimed against the Israeli occupation and in parts against the PLO-government in exile. The weapons were tax boycott, stones and the installation of cooperatives. In the territories that were occupied in 1967, by that time Israel’s second important export market, independent Palestinian economy was marginalized and during the Intifada is was mostly prohibited. The film shows the illegal infrastructure: farming, clinics, a sewing shop, a carpenter’s workshop, and political meetings
Jenny Morgan 1988 docu 21 min.
Amongst the first documentaries made on the uprising, Intifada: Road to Freedom employed expansive news footage and interview materials in an effort to explain the intifada’s causes for audiences abroad. It was made independently, on a limited budget, and with support from Palestinian scholars and activists in Britain at the time.
Hazim Bitar 2010 fiction 24 min.
In this short drama by the founding director of the Amman Filmmakers Cooperative, Younis (Jonah), decides to make one final tunnel run between the Gaza Strip and Egypt when things take a dangerous turn. Finding himself stranded underground, Younis ponders existential questions and reflects on the peculiar contradiction of being alive though buried beneath the earth…
Jayce Salloum – Elia Suleiman 1990 docu 41 min.
Language: Arabic, English and Hebrew with English subtitles.
Jayce Salloum and Elia Suleiman take a shot at the western media’s image of the Arab world. In this militant combination of American, European and Israeli film fragments, excerpts from documentaries and TV news and specially filmed footage of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1988, it becomes clear how repeated falsifications are transformed unnoticed into a ’genuine’ foreign policy. A process of displacement and deconstruction is enacted, attempting to arrest the imagery and ideology, to provide a space for a marginal voice that has consistently been denied expression in the media.
The film is a deconstruction of Western and Israeli discourses that have dominated the political and cultural descriptions of the Middle East. Jayce Salloum and Elia Sulieman use a collection of excerpts from American, European and Israeli documentaries, news reports, films, and contrast it with images of the West Bank and Gaza during the first intifada. It offers a critique of the portrayal of Arabs in Western media and links the influence of this representation on Western foreign policy. It is a short film that responds with an alternative voice that rarely gets reflected in the media.
Rarely screened, this early collaboration between renowned Lebanese Canadian video artist Jayce Salloum and Palestinian director Elia Suleiman (Divine Intervention, Chronicle of a Disappearance) is a wonderful piece of culture jamming satire and political jujitsu. Assembling a combination of Hollywood, European and Israeli film, documentary, news coverage together with excerpts of ‘live’ footage shot in the West Bank and Gaza strip, Introduction to the End of an Argument… critiques Western representations of the Middle East, Arab culture, and the Palestinian people. The film mimics dominant forms of representation, subverting their methodology in a bid to arrest both imagery and ideology, decolonizing and recontextualizing images to provide space for a voice consistently denied expression in the mass media. www.vimeo.com
Director: Yariv Mozer Israel, 2012, 0 minutes
The untold story of gay Palestinians persecuted in their communities and are hiding illegally in Tel Aviv. Their only chance for survival is to seek asylum outside Israel and Palestine, and to leave their homeland behind forever.
Co-presented by: A Wider Bridge, Newfest and AICF www.youtube.com
Director: Mushon Salmona 2013, 80 minutes Narrative
The story of Raed and Sleiman, Bedouin cousins, who make their way in life between their parents’ tradition and their wish to be part of modern Israeli society. Their journey, aspirations, and their impossible love to the same Jewish girl, tells the story of a whole community in transition.
Human Rights, Romance
Mohammed Atalar 2006 docu 52 min.
In 1923 the prominent Zionist ideologue Vladimir Jabotinsky, wrote that,“Zionist colonization must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an Iron Wall, which the native population cannot breach.” From that day these words became the official and unspoken policy of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel. Settlements were used from the outset to create a foothold in Palestine. After 1967 and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the settlement project was revived to create “facts on the ground” and make the creation of a Palestinian state there impossible. There are now over 200 settlements and outposts throughout the West Bank blocking the emergence of a contiguous Palestinian territory. The Iron Wall exposes this phenomenon, following the timeline, size, and population of the settlements, and their impact on the peace process. The film also touches on the latest project to entrench the settlements as permanent “facts on the ground” – the wall. www.youtube.com
Sara Saber / Narrative / UAE / 2013 / 18 mins
Two characters a widow and her daughter fill their lives with poetry and art, when life was easier in the past and art was much more appreciated. Twenty years later, the daughter decides to leave the house. The mother then sells the family history yet dies shortly afterwards. www.youtube.com
Monika Borgman – 2009 docu 52 min.
In Place: 4 Returnees from the Lebanese Civil Wars is the latest documentary outcome of expansive research conducted into perpetrators, memory, and violence under the auspices of the Umam Centre for Documentation and Research in Beirut. Directors Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim (Massaker) offer viewers a kaleidoscopic view of the varied conflicts and actors involved in Lebanon’s civil wars. The film revolves around four enigmatic interviews, each a separate “act” in the drama of these wars. Assaad Chaftari tells of his remorse over serving as a senior intelligence official in the Lebanese Forces. An anonymous Amal Movement fighter relates his experiences kidnapping people. Elias Atallah, now a prominent politician, speaks about violence and its use in politics. Another anonymous Amal fighter shares his memories of fighting in two overlooked wars: the War between Hezbollah and Amal, and the War of the Camps against the Palestinians. Wars fated each of these people in vastly different ways. Former leaders continue to hold respectable positions. Their confidence shines through in their interviews. In contrast, former militia “grunts” continue to hold marginalized positions, giving furtive interviews under the cover of anonymity.
by Nora al-Sharif Jordan. Runtime: 28min
Inspired by a day in the life of the famous and prolific Palestinian painter Ismail Shammout (1930-2006), Ismail depicts the evocative story of a young Palestinian artist struggling to survive and support his parents and young brother after their expulsion to a refugee camp in 1948 by the Israeli forces.
Trailer: www.youtube.com
Won 1ste prijs voor de korte films op Arab Camera Festival R’dam 2013
Mor Loushy 2009 docu 53 min.
“The Israel Experience” is the one of the largest Zionist outreach projects launched in recent years. Its purpose is to create new allies for the government of Israel. To this end, “The Israel Experience” provides young Jews guided tours of the “Holy Land”. Loushy’s eyeopening film follows one such tour from beginning to end, accompanying a group of young North Americans as they undergo an intensive pedagogic voyage through a “strong and righteous” Israel. She follows these modernday pilgrims as they are shepherded past contested borders, through Druze villages, over the Golan Heights, and on to Mount Herzl Cemetery and the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. All the while, military guides recall heroic sacrifices made in fashioning the one true homeland: the Yom Kippur War, the struggle against Hezbollah, or the cultivation of blossoming life in desert soil. While the young vacationers are invited to return home as “true ambassadors” for Israel, Loushy’s documentary alerts us to the fertile concoction of myth and militarism being instilled in these impressionable young visitors. www.youtube.com
by Gina Angelone, Patrick Stewart, Mouna Stewart USA Runtime: 01 hr : 13 min : 22 sec
The movie gives voice to Arab inhabitants of the ancient walled city of Akka (located on Israel’s northern coast) as both the people and their town face a very uncertain future. It’s Better to Jump weaves together a magical story of an historic place, its people, and the hopes they hold beyond all limitation to make giant leaps of faith in life.
There is a centuries-old seawall in the ancient port of Akka, located on Israel’s northern coast. Today, Akka is a modern city inhabited by Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Baha’i, but its history goes all the way back to rule of the Egyptian Pharaohs. Young people dare to stand atop the 40′ one-meter thick block structure and risk their fate by jumping into the roiling sea. This perilous tradition has continued for many generations, and has become a rite of passage for the children of Akka. “It’s Better to Jump” is about the ancient walled city of Akka as it undergoes harsh economic pressures and vast social change. The film focuses on the aspirations and concerns of the Palestinian inhabitants who call the Old City home. – See more at: www.vimeo.com
Eyal Sivan 1990 docu 97 min.
Dealing with the period of the spring cycle of religious and secular holidays and memorials in Israel and the relationship between collective memory and cultural identity, the film invites the viewer into a world where remembrance and forgetting are deeply politicised acts integral to national and societal cohesion. Due to its implied criticism of the Israeli educational establishment, the Ministry of Education and Culture still forbids public screenings in Israel of this profound and rarely seen film. “We are at the end of the era of ideologies, and only Zionism still embraces collective thinking. All kinds of collective thinking are totalitarian” – Director, Eyal Sivan. www.youtube.com
Rama Mari (ook scenario), fictie, 2013, 20 min. Palestina trailer:
In a land dotted with killing machines they find an easy cover-up for their crime. And even when the truth starts to find its way out, fate will swiftly play a game so common for this land. vimeo.com
