It is one of the paradoxes of Arab-Jewish relations in Israel that some of the best movies on Palestinians as society’s outsiders are made by Jewish directors.
For cinema fans interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is a banner year, with Oscar submissions from both sides focused on the Israeli occupation.
United by the small screen, Israelis and Palestinians will transcend their divisions this week when “Under the Same Sun,” a film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is broadcast simultaneously on Israel’s Channel 2 and the Palestinian Ma`an television stations.
Beirut, Lebanon, 1982, at the dawn of the Lebanese Civil War: A young Palestinian boy living at the Shatila refugee camp forges an unlikely bond with an Israeli fighter pilot. It is this unlikely encounter in the film “Zaytoun,” directed by renowned Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis (“The Lemon Tree,” “The Syrian Bride,” “The Human Resources Manager”), that convinced the director he had not, in fact, exhausted his Middle Eastern stories.
Recently, I went to see “World War Z,” a typical Hollywood blockbuster with a fairly typical theme — zombies. Now, a quick note to all you non-film buffs out there: Zombie films are never about zombies; they are about the societal pressures of the day.
In an early scene in “Miral,” the new film by artist-filmmaker Julian Schnabel opening March 25, a Palestinian activist named Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) comes across a ragtag group of about 50 children in Jerusalem’s Old City, many of them crying, trembling, dirty, barefoot, their hair matted and faces traumatized. The oldest is a girl of around 12, who explains that, the night before, the children had barely escaped a fiery rampage that destroyed their homes. They are alone, hungry and terrified.
Julian Schnabel must have known that screening a film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the United Nations General Assembly would be scene-stealing. To set the town talking, the event would unite all the trappings — provocative subject matter, prestigious venue, Hollywood glamour.
I recently signed a letter protesting the Toronto International Film Festival\’s decision to showcase and celebrate Tel Aviv. This in the very year when Gaza happened.
Even the annual Oscar competition can\’t stay clear of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\nThis year, the brouhaha is about \”Private,\” a film centering on a Palestinian West Bank family whose home is temporarily taken over by a squad of Israeli soldiers.\n\”Private,\” the work of Italian director Saverio Costanzo, was shot by an Italian crew and was selected as Italy\’s official entry in the foreign language film Oscar category.\nIt was promptly rejected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which accepted entries from 57 other countries, including Israel and the not-yet nation of Palestine.
Israeli filmmaker Shemi Zarhin is a gourmet cook and baker, whose diet-defying cakes, especially, soothe the vilest temper.
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