The Darkest Days: Israel-Gaza Six Months On

Borderline

Invalid date •French

Objector

November 2019 •English

Like all Israeli youth, Atalya is obligated to become a soldier. Unlike most, she questions the practices of her country's military, and becomes determined to challenge this rite of passage. Despite her family's political disagreements and personal concerns, she refuses military duty and is imprisoned for her dissent. Her courage moves those around her to reconsider their own moral positions and personal power. OBJECTOR follows Atalya to prison and beyond, offering a unique window into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of a young woman who seeks truth and takes a stand for justice.

Kafr Kassem

January 1974 •Arabic

On the eve of the Israeli attack on Egypt in 1956, Israel declares martial law in all the occupied Arab territories without any previous notice. When the villagers of Kafr Kassem returned home from the fields, they were butchered and killed in what is known today as the massacre of “Kafr Kassem”.

Control Room

January 2004 •Arabic

A chronicle which provides a rare window into the international perception of the Iraq War, courtesy of Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news outlet. Roundly criticized by Cabinet members and Pentagon officials for reporting with a pro-Iraqi bias, and strongly condemned for frequently airing civilian causalities as well as footage of American POWs, the station has revealed (and continues to show the world) everything about the Iraq War that the Bush administration did not want it to see.

Journey into Gaza

November 2024 •Italian

“In Gaza you have to get there in the evening, in spring, lock yourself in your room and from there listen to the sounds coming in through the open window.... It's 2018. I am 25 years old and a foreign traveler. I meet young Palestinians my age..”

Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority

March 2006 •English

A thought-provoking documentary on the current and historical causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. political involvement.

Gaza Calling

December 2012 •Arabic

Samer lives in Ramallah in the West Bank. His family lives in Gaza, one hour away. They have not seen each other for six years. When Mustafa went for a visit to Gaza in 2006, he was 18 years old. He was never allowed to return – his mother Hekmat has been fighting to see him again for seven years now. Two families torn apart. They share the same “crime”: being registered with a Gaza address in their Identity Cards. Under Israeli rule, they are considered “infiltrators” in their own country. Their lives have turned into a permanent struggle. Parents can only talk to their sons on the phone; sisters can only see their brothers on the internet – mothers and their children fighting to be together at last…

Waltz with Bashir

June 2008 •Hebrew

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

Bil'in Habibti

January 2006 •English

The Israeli filmmaker Shai Corneli Polak records the building of the 'security wall' through Palestinian territory at the village of Bil'in. The villagers protest mostly peacefully, while the Israeli army doesn't react peacefully. By now the Israeli High Court has ruled that the building of the wall was illegal.

No Other Land

November 2024 •Arabic

This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.

Breaking Bread

February 2022 •English

In Breaking Bread, exotic cuisine and a side of politics are on the menu. Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel - the first Muslim Arab to win Israel's MasterChef - is on a quest to make a social change through food. And so, she founded the A-sham Arabic Food Festival in Haifa. There, pairs of Arab and Jewish chefs collaborate on mouthwatering dishes like kishek (a Syrian yogurt soup), and qatayef (a dessert typically served during Ramadan), as we savor the taste of hope and discover the food of their region free from political and religious boundaries.

Detained

February 2001 •Hebrew

Najwa, Nawal, and Siham, three Palestinian widows, live with their 11 children in a house on Shuhada Street in Hebron. Their house lies on the border; the façade is under Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority controls the back. At the entrance to the house is a military post; on the roof the Israeli army has placed a watch point over Palestinian Hebron. The three women, trapped in the middle and constantly surrounded by Israeli soldiers, carry on their difficult lives in a perverse situation: the occupation becomes a routine, the absurd becomes a given. This is the story of an occupation that extends to the staircase and the roof of the house, where it encounters poverty, loneliness, pain, but also the small joys of everyday life. This is an internal prison, the external one is the ongoing occupation.

Galoot

February 2003 •English

A film essay by Asher de Bentolila Tlalim, an Israeli filmmaker living in London, GALOOT ("Exile" in Hebrew) is an extended meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of those living at a distance. Through international visits (London, Israel, Morocco and Poland) and dialogue-with Palestinian refugees, the new immigrants to Israel who now occupy their homes, the current occupants of his family's former house in Tangiers, the residents of the former village of his wife's family in Lisensk, a scientist, a jazz musician, and others-the filmmaker explores the position of exile, with its unique pain and perspective on what others may be too close to perceive.

Israelism

February 2023 •English

When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the mistreatment of Palestinians, they battle the old guard to create a new movement opposing Israel’s occupation, and recentering Judaism itself.

The Men Behind the Wall

February 2018 •English

Tinder. Woman looking for a man, man looking for a woman. It could have been so simple if she wasn't Israeli and the "man nearby" wasn't behind the wall, in the East Bank of the Jordan River. Israeli filmmaker Ines Moldavski meets Palestinian men she met on the Internet to get them to talk about their need for love and desire to possess.

1913: Seeds of Conflict

February 2015 •English

Explore an overlooked moment in pre-WWI Palestine when people's identities overlapped, and Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities intermingled freely. Few could contemplate the conflict that would engulf their region for the next century.

Praying for Armageddon

March 2023 •English

While much of the world struggles to keep the planet going, a frighteningly large group of American fundamentalist Christians are working to promote the apocalypse. The evangelical movement is convinced that they will be saved when Jesus appears in the state of Israel on horseback and, with a sword raised to heaven, kills the infidels so that the blood reaches the horses’ bridles. Natural fires, corona, wars and crises are evidence that the time is nigh. But for the prophecies to be realized, the state of Israel has to grow stronger, so they provide huge financial support and are so far inside the White House that they help influence US foreign policy.

A Song Called Hate

June 2021 •English

The pro-Palestinian, anti-capitalist, BDSM-provocative, techno-punk performance art ensemble Hatari unsurprisingly drew attention to themselves with their performance at the Icelandic qualifiers for the Eurovision Song Contest. So much so that they won and therefore were allowed to perform at the main event in Tel Aviv. But what now? Should they boycott the event, swallow their idealism, or use their airtime to criticise the host country for their illegal occupation of Palestine? The Icelandic director Anna Hildur joins the boys in the band all the way to the fateful final.

Israel's Arab Warriors

October 2016 •English

The last years have seen a steep rise in the number of Arabs signing up to Israel's army. Considered traitors by many in the Arab community, what drives these young men to fight for a country traditionally in conflict with Arab interests? Does this provide a path for Israeli/Arab integration? In this insightful doc, we follow the first Arab battalion fighting for Israel.

On the Objection Front

March 2005 •Hebrew

A film documenting the story of the Israeli refusnik-movement and interviews some of its protagonists. This timely documentary interweaves the stories of six soldiers who, after years of loyal reserve duty and annual active combat, find they can no longer countenance serving in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They become "refusniks" - an action that puts them at odds with deeply held national values and has devastating consequences in their own lives. In the film, six of the signers of the original "Combatants’ Letter" reveal the untenable combat experiences that led to their decision, the public outcry it provoked and the price they continue to pay for refusing to serve - including isolation, family ostracism and imprisonment. Winner, Ecumenical Jury Prize, Berlin Film Festival