Tag Archives: Israel

The Collaborator and His Family, Sunday on Global Voices

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ITVS’s Annisa Kau sat down with filmmakers Ruthie Shatz and Adi Barash to discuss their documentary The Collaborator and His Family. The film, which follows a Palestinian family as it is torn apart by its patriarch’s collaboration with Israel, will air this Sunday, August 5 on Global Voices on the WORLD Channel (check local listings).

Can you tell us about your background and what led you to Ibrahim’s family and this project?

Since we began our documentary careers, our main focus has dealt with human rights and people’s pursuit of liberty.

One of the key elements of Israel’s security defense system is the use of collaborators, or informants, so we had been aware of the subject. While filming our 2004 film GARDEN, we came across many collaborators and their families on the dark streets of southern Tel Aviv, where junkies and prostitutes lived. Continue reading →

The Karate Kid Takes on Global Voices

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A young Muslim Israeli is trapped between her passion for karate and religious tradition in Shadya, airing this Sunday on Global Voices on the WORLD Channel (check local listings).

Directed by Roy Westler, the film takes place in Northern Israel and profiles a 17-year-old charismatic karate champion. Shadya is a rare breed, a feminist in a male-dominated culture and a Muslim Arab living in Israel.

As she grapples with the looming tension of an early marriage and her Palestinian identity, Shadya refuses to play by the rules of her traditional Muslim community.

Check out the trailer for Shadya (after the jump) ahead of the broadcast this Sunday. Continue reading →

A Look at the World Through Israeli Documentaries

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By Claire Aguilar
Vice President of Programming, ITVS

Since its inception in 1999, DocAviv has become one of the leading cultural events in Israel with the aim of promoting Israeli and international documentary film. ITVS’s Claire Aguilar attended the 2012 DocAviv International Film Festival May 3-12, as a juror for Israeli Competition.

Over the last 10 years, Israel has become one of the leading sources of independently-produced documentary films.  There is a dizzying abundance of documentary films and filmmakers in Israel — and not only are there many, they have also been successful: showcased in international festivals, sold to broadcasters in Israel and in the U.S. and Europe, winning prizes and garnering international press.  It has been amazing to witness the growth of strong, innovative, and diverse Israeli films — covering subjects that you would expect to see from Israeli filmmakers, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict — but also covering the personal and global experience, films about family, identity, and culture, with other films covering globalization, immigration, and homophobia.

I heard from one filmmaker that there are at least 20 film schools in Israel, and that is mostly counting only Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  The community of documentary filmmakers is intimate, diverse, and full of talent — and here at ITVS, we have been fortunate to work with many Israeli filmmakers over the past eight years and have showcased them on U.S. public television: Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, Dalit Kimor’s Pickles, Inc., Yoav Shamir’s Flipping Out, Ran Tal’s The Children of the Sun, Nati Baratz’s Unmistaken Child, Ruthie Shatz, and Adi Baratz’s The Collaborator and His Family, and many others. Continue reading →

Children Unite in Promises on ITVS Indies Showcase

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The documentary Promises began streaming free this past Sunday on ITVS Indies Showcase and will be available to watch free until the morning of Wednesday, August 3.

What is it really like to live in Jerusalem? Promises offers touching and fresh insight into the Middle East conflict when filmmakers Justine Shapiro, B. Z. Goldberg, and Carlos Bolado travel to this complex and charged city to see what seven children — Palestinian and Israeli — think about war, peace, and just growing up.

Living within 20 minutes of each other, these children are nevertheless locked in separate worlds. Through candid interviews, the film explores a legacy of distrust and bitterness, but signs of hope emerge when some of the children dare to cross the checkpoints to meet one another.

 

 

Celebrate Independence Day with Global Voices

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Throughout July, Global Voices will examine the efforts and struggles around the world as people and organizations strive for democracy, independence, and freedom. Global Voices airs Sunday nights at 10PM on the WORLD Channel.

In honor of Independence Day, Global Voices and the WORLD Channel present four international documentaries throughout the month of July that focus on the different, difficult actions people and organizations have taken in the fight for independence.

The month begins with Storm of Emotions (July 3rd at 10 PM), chronicling the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the efforts to achieve democracy amidst great social and political turmoil. Read more about the Global Voices line up after the jump >>

Continue reading →

Karate Kid Takes on Global Voices

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Shadya airs on Global Voices Sunday, July 25

A young Muslim Israeli is trapped between her passion for karate and religious tradition in Shadya, airing this Sunday on Global Voices on PBS World (check local listings).

Directed by Roy Westler, the film takes place in Northern Israel and profiles a 17-year-old charismatic karate champion. Shadya is a rare breed, a feminist in a male-dominated culture and a Muslim Arab living in Israel.

As she grapples with the looming tension of an early marriage and her Palestinian identity, Shadya refuses to play by the rules of her traditional Muslim community.

Check out the trailer for Shadya ahead of the broadcast this Sunday.

Jerusalem Gay Bar as Metaphor for Peace and Unity

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Filmmaker Yun Jong Suh

Filmmaker Yun Jong Suh discusses how she came to make a film about the only gay bar in Jerusalem. Her film, City of Borders, airs on public television this month. Check listings in your area here.

As a Buddhist Korean American, I am frequently asked why I am interested in the Middle East and how I discovered Shushan, Jerusalem’s only gay bar. I’m not the most obvious candidate to tell this story. But I believe my outsider status proved to be instrumental in making City of Borders.

I’m drawn to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because I intimately relate to both sides of the war. Like the Israelis, I grew up in constant fear of my neighboring country, North Korea, attacking my small village in South Korea. I did not see North Koreans as humans but as demons determined to kill us if they had the chance. My childhood playtime often involved devising escape routes and places to hide in my home if North Koreans ever invaded.

Continue reading →

Celebrate Gay Pride Month with ITVS

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They’re here, they’re queer, they’re ITVS films that document and celebrate the LGBT community. Get used to it!

At the core of ITVS’s mission is to amplify the voices of the underrepresented in traditional media. In June, we get to celebrate the films airing this month across the nation, as well as those in our catalog that tell the rarely heard stories from the gay, lesbian, and transgendered communities.

This month, a remarkable film – City of Borders – airs on various PBS stations (check listings here). The film documents an astounding array of regulars at Jerusalem’s only gay bar. Palestinians (some who must sneak over Israel’s “security fence” to get there) mingle with Israelis, Muslims with Jews, men with women, gay people with straight people. It’s a stunning microcosm of peace and shared humanity amidst a landscape rent with conflict.

But also take a moment to browse through our film catalog’s sortable search engine for all of our films on LGBT topics.

Among them, notably, given recent news, is Ask Not, a film about the United States military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy that systematically bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. Now that repeal of DADT has been passed in both houses of Congress, there’s hope that this film is about to become an archival document of a sad time gone by.

Watch CHILDREN OF THE SUN Tonight on the Sundance Channel

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“CHILDREN OF THE SUN explores the era’s ideals, failures and legacy as it interweaves archival home movies, children’s songs, other rare recordings of kibbutz life from 1930-1980, as well as poignant interviews with the now-grown ‘Children of the Sun,’ some of his family members and their friends.”
- Jewish Tribune

In the 1920s and 30s, tens of thousands of children were born on an Israeli kibbutz and raised as part of a social experiment to create a new and improved human. The film traces the “Children of the Sun” from their birth through their growth as members of the Zionist elite and to the crisis that weakened the kibbutz movement.

Watch a preview below:

CHILDREN OF THE SUN airs tonight, July 20, at 9:00 PM on the Sundance Channel (check local listings).

Director Ran Tal recently discussed how he became interested in the topic on Beyond the Box Blog.
Read his Q&A >>

Director Ran Tal Discusses CHILDREN OF THE SUN, Airing Monday on the Sundance Channel

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Ran Tal, director of CHILDREN OF THE SUN.

Director Ran Tal was born in Israel to a farmer’s family and grew up on Kibbutz Beit Hashita. In his latest film CHILDREN OF THE SUN, airing Monday, July 20 at 9:00 PM on the Sundance Channel, Tal traces Israel’s kibbutz movement and follows members of the Zionist elite from their birth in the 1920s and ‘30s to the crisis that weakened the movement. Appearing at film festivals across the country, Tal discussed his personal connection to the subject. Check out his Q&A from the San Francisco International Film Festival and learn more about how the audience reacted in Israel, the research process and why he made the film.

Why did you decide to focus your film on a family in the kibbutz?
I understood that the story of the kibbutz might be very big. But I really thought that to focus on these small intimate things, on this radical alternative family of the kibbutz, would be a good chance to tell a story that is very intimate, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, would be a big one. I really believe in intimate cinema, instead of the cinema that tries to put everything together and ends up not catching anything.

Read the full interview >>

Watch a preview >>