DCist’s daily roundup of a number of films playing tomorrow at the AFI/Discovery Channel Silverdocs festival.
As Silverdocs heads into its concluding weekend, many of the films being shown are second screenings of films that premiered earlier in the week. So be sure to check out the roundups from previous days if you’re curious about films that are playing from now until the end of the festival; you’ll find many of them were written up earlier in the week.
Julia Bacha’s ‘Budrus’The Israeli West Bank Barrier, a series of walls and fences currently under construction to separate Israel from the occupied territories, has been contentious from the start. Chief among the complaints of Palestinians, and many observers, is that the wall follows a bizarre and serpentine course that strays far from the established “Green Line” divide that separates the two areas. In some places, the wall even completely surrounds occupied areas, cutting residents off from the land they depend on to survive. The village of Budrus was one such place, a settlement which was to not only become completely isolated by the wall, but the villagers were to lose acres of olive trees that would be uprooted in its path. Olive trees that form the basis of Budrus’ small economy.
Julia Bacha’s inspiring documentary looks at what happened when those in the village refused to take the destruction of their lands sitting down. They fought back, but not with weapons; led by a local by the name of Ayed Morrar, they engaged in a months-long non-violent protest, joined by a collection of sympathizers from countries all over the globe, including many Israelis, to prevent the military forces from building the fence through their trees, cemeteries, and schoolyards.
The film itself is just as much a collaboration as the protests, as Bacha came to the project after the conflict had been going on for some time. She combines her own footage with that a number of international observers who had been filming the buildup of confrontations between the army and protesters from the start. These combine to show the sum total of the residents’ perseverance, as well as how the smallest incident can set a nervous armed force off into violent response.
Morrar is the heart of this film, a consummate diplomat and driven leader, organizing his village and communicating between the often conflicting agendas of his people, the military, the local Hamas representative, and the Palestinian National Authority. His example of non-violent response to occupation not only has served as an inspiration to other villages in similar situations with respect to the wall, but stands in stark contrast to stereotypes of the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict usually concentrated on by the media.
View the trailer
Screens tomorrow at 4 p.m. in the AFI Silver Theater 2.
