Gallery Curator Statement: Tom Hayes

Two Blue Lines provides an unswerving examination of the human and political rights situation of Palestinian people living under Israeli rule. The documentary, shot over a period of twenty five years in Israeli occupied Palestinian territory, presents Israeli narratives of the Palestinian experience from the 1930's to the present. More...

Some kids play basketball.  Some, like my friends and I, made films.  I wound up going to film school and have worked in the industry for decades.  Now I split my time between making and teaching.  A little over 30 years ago I had an epiphany about the situation Palestinians have been driven into.  It evolved from documentary work I had been doing in the Cambodian refugee camps along the Thai border.  It wasn’t much of a leap to connect the Cambodian experience to the Palestinian experience.  I haven’t looked back since.  Along the way I’ve made three long form documentaries about the human and political rights situation of Palestinian people. 

Martin Sheen narrates this examination of the lives of three Palestinian families who fled their homes in 1948 and have lived as refugees in Lebanon ever since. Originally released in 1985, Native Sons probes the roots of the Palestine/Israel conflict through lives of individual people. Utilizing archive footage dating from as early as 1935, the film provides an accessible introduction to "the Middle East Conflict."

My latest film, Two Blue Lines,  features Israeli narratives (progressive Jewish Israelis) of the Palestinian experience.  During the making of that film I got to know many Israeli organizations that have held fast to the Jewish ethical tradition.  I hadn’t found that orientation in the U.S. until I heard about the advent of Jewish Voice for Peace.  I joined up in a heartbeat.  JVP is a profoundly important social movement.  It shows the promise of having a real impact on improving the lives of both Palestinians and Israelis. Two Blue Lines is currently available through Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU).

I was asked recently to curate a gallery of films for JVP.  Here are some picks.  Some are quite old, but seminal works, some newer.  The list is a mix of fiction and documentaries.  Some of the films contain elements of both genres.  It’s not a comprehensive list of all the films made on this topic, but these are films I regard highly.

Featured
Five Broken Cameras
Five Broken Cameras

Directed by Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi. Academy award nominated documentary (2012). This film is ground breaking in that it is a joint Israeli/Palestinian project with a distinctly Palestinian narrative.

Al Nakba: Aljazeera series
Al Nakba: Aljazeera series

This is a really expansive four-part documentary (2013) that drills down into the realities of the founding of Israel. Excellent archive work.

 

Canticle of the Stones
Canticle of the Stones

Director Michel Khleifi (1990). Tough to get, but a good look at the first uprising by a Palestinian director. One great line I’ll never forget: “If they kill us all the stones will throw themselves.”  Find out more.

Circle of Deceit
Circle of Deceit

This poetic film by Volker Schlondorff (1981), centered in Lebanon, is a bit more oblique, but it deals with people – outsiders – bearing witness to and trying to cope with the conflict. Available to rent online.

Flying Paper
Flying Paper

Co-Directors: Nitin Sawhney and Roger Hill. A gentle documentary about life in Gaza (2013). http://flyingpaper.org/press/

Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Palestinian Family
Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Palestinian Family

Created by PeA Holmquist, Joan Mandell, and Pierre Bjorklund (1984), this is the first feature documentary about Gaza. A corrosively clear picture of Israel’s behavior in Gaza.  Available to rent online.

Hanna K.
Hanna K.

Hanna K, directed by Costa-Gavras (1983), is said to be the film that made Costa “a bitter man.”  Its distribution was inexplicably yanked in the U.S.  It is a rough fictionalization of Lea Tsemel’s work, and it is one powerful film.  Edward Said, in the Village Voice, wrote, “As a political as well as cinematic intervention.. Hanna K. is a statement of a great and I believe, lasting significance.” Available on VHS(!) if you search online.

 

Lemon Tree
Lemon Tree

Director: Eran Riklis (2009). A very human reflection on the resource/land grab regime.  Available to rent online.

Paradise Now
Paradise Now

Director: Hany Abu-Assad (2005). About the realities of the lives of suicide bombers. Available to rent online.

Salt of This Sea
Salt of This Sea

Director: Annemarie Jacir; Produced by Danny Glover (2009). An exile returns and gets a terrible dose of the Zionist reality. It’s poetic, sometimes funny, and thoroughly grounded in reality.  More info.

The Law in These Parts
The Law in These Parts

Director: Ra'anan Alexandrowicz (2011). The history of Israel's military legal system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (if the term “legal system” has any real meaning in the occupied Palestinian territories.) Available to view online.

 

The Wanted 18
The Wanted 18

New (2014) film to which I contributed footage. The Wanted 18 is making the rounds right now. It focuses on the tax strike in 1989 in Beit Sahour, just outside Bethlehem.  I’ll never forget the night Israeli soldiers forced Palestinians out of their homes in the night to paint over graffiti reading “No Taxation Without Representation.” Find out more.