Since October 2023, Gaza has been sealed from the world-except for one group. International doctors breach the blockade, what they find is not just a humanitarian crisis, but a calculated dismantling of life itself.
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
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.
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.
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.
A thought-provoking documentary on the current and historical causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. political involvement.
Unpublished testimonies from freed hostages, survivors, and members of first responders regarding the attacks perpetrated on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, by the terrorist gang Hamas reveal the repugnant extent of the crimes committed by the so-called Palestinian freedom fighters.
A documentary film that brings testimonies taken just one week after the attack, from 7 different areas that were attacked in the events of Saturday, 10/7/23. The film is told from the point of view of the survivors. The evidence is unusually presented in the movie with the help of miniature models and animations that reinforce the hard evidence. The survivors share the survival experience they experienced during the long hours of the murderous terrorist attack. Those who ran away from the party, the houses they hid in, those who fought against the terrorists, and those who saved lives in the field. All with the choices they had to make in real-time, and saved their lives.
The film returns to the origins of the creation of the State of Israel (from 1896 to 1948) and highlights the responsibility of the Western World.
Rachel Corrie, a young American woman and her friends attempt to stop a bulldozer from clearing out some homes and other buildings. Corrie was run over and killed. Witnesses claim it was deliberate.
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.
A film director from Israel interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
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.
Borderline
“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..”
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.
Five broken cameras – and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.
So many Israelis still wax nostalgic about that old Friday afternoon ritual, back in the times when television had just one channel. Everyone would watch the Arab movie of the week, but did anybody ever wonder how Israel’s official TV station was able to transcend hostile boundaries to obtain these films, and why it insisted on showing movies made by “the enemy”? The Arabic-language movie from Egypt let some of us escape back to our original homeland, and let others peek out from our “villa in the jungle” and catch a glimpse of our neighbors across the border. But most of us didn’t really want to see the people whose culture, anguish, and aspirations were reflected on our screens. “Arab Movie” brings us the stars and the songs, the convoluted plots, and that fleeting moment when we shared the same cultural heroes as everyone else in the Middle East. But this film about the richness and intensity of Egyptian cinema also raises some disturbing questions.
Louis Theroux spends time with a small and very committed subculture of ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers. He discovers a group of people who consider it their religious and political obligation to populate some of the most sensitive areas of the West Bank, especially those with a spiritual significance dating back to the Bible. Throughout his journey, Louis gets close to the people most involved with driving the extreme end of the Jewish settler movement - finding them warm, friendly, humorous, and deeply troubling.
Leila Khaled was the first woman to hijack a plane. In 1969, she showed her grenades to the terrified passengers by order of the Che Guevara commando unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Through the ensuing media bombardment, she put the Palestinian nation on the global map. The pretty 24-year-old Leila became a hero to many Palestinians, including the Swedish/Palestinian teenager Lina Makboul, who is now a filmmaker. At least Leila dared to do something, Lina thought at the time. She visits Leila 35 years later with a camera, and finds a woman who does not regret anything.