Two Israeli Documentary Films are Nominated for Oscars

Two films -- both of which appear on my list of "best films of 2012" -- have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film.  

The two films are --

• ·         Five Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi, about the Palestinian resistance movement in the village of Bili'in, against the separation barrier which was arbitrarily dividing the people of the village from their agricultural lands.
• ·         The Gatekeepers by Dror Moreh, an exposé of the critical decision-making by the leadership of the Shin Bet, the Israeli security establishment.

The fact that two Israeli films were nominated for an Oscar is incredibly important for the Israeli film industry.  It shows that documentary filmmaking here is on par with that around the world and that our films are not only well-made, but they also tackle important and controversial issues.

There is another reason that it is so important that we have reached this milestone -- this will bring both local and international attention to the subject matter of the films.  Both films deal with how the Israeli military controls the civilian population in the West Bank.  Right-wingers in Israel don't like the term -- but the "occupation" is the word used by most of the Western press and some of the Israeli press to refer to Israeli rule of most of the West Bank for the past 45 years .  While this is a stark reality that has been facing us for a long time, most Israelis live in denial about it and prefer not to know the details. These two films present them in their harsh reality, which must no longer be ignored.

You might be surprised to learn that it is hardly part of the nation's discourse in the upcoming elections.  Most of the "mainstream" Israeli  political parties are not discussing  plans for renewing the peace process, for bringing about "two states for two peoples", or beginning to talk about the need to withdraw from settlements in the West Bank as a compromise on the road to peace.  

The irony is that  the attention that these films will receive in Hollywood may bring these subjects back into the center of public debate within Israeli society.

The Gatekeepers

This week, The Gatekeepers, directed by Dror Moreh and produced by Phillipa Kowarsky, which has been winning attention and accolades internationally, won the U.S. National Society of Film Critics' award for best documentary! 

The film is important for its provocative look at Israel's security or intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, which is charged with keeping us safe by dealing with Israel's war on terror.  All six living former heads of this agency talk candidly on camera about their hard decisions and controversial actions while head of the agency. The six are: Avi Dichter, Avraham Shalom, Yuval Diskin, Jacob Peri, Carmi Gillon, and Ami Ayalon.

The Gatekeepers  which premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival (July 2012) is feature-length (95 minutes) and is available from Cinephil.

In a review which appeared in The Times of Israel (an on-line Israeli newspaper), David Horovitz wrote:

"For his dark, provocative documentary The Gatekeepers, director Dror Moreh secured interviews with all six living ex-chiefs of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service. And he achieved that dark, provocative impact neither by sensationalist distortion of their comments nor by camera trickery — although the film includes rare and powerful footage of counter-terror operations. He simply allowed those veteran intelligence chiefs, speaking to camera in separate, intercut interviews, to discuss their roles, the particular challenges that dominated their time in office, and their conclusions about Israel’s fight against Palestinian and, for some of them, Jewish terrorism." (The Times of Israel, July 12, 2012)

See the entire article at The Times of Israel