2004

Exploring the history of a house in East Jerusalem as a microcosm for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the first film, "House" (1980), a Euro-Israeli professor has purchased the house from an aging Algerian-Israeli couple. An Israeli contractor rehabs the house with Palestinian laborers. Meanwhile, the filmmakers seek out the house's pre- 1948 owner. Produced and then censored by Israeli television, House was saved from the dustbin of history by its director, Amos GITAI.

For more than a year, KHLEIFI and SIVAN have dedicated themselves to producing what they consider a cinematic act of faith: a film co-directed by a Palestinian and by an Israeli. In the summer of 2002, for two long months, they traveled together from the south to the north of their country of birth, traced their trajectory on a map and called it Route 181. This virtual line follows the borders outlined in Resolution 181, which was adopted by the United Nations on Nevember 29th,1947, to partition Palestine into two states.

"The Smell of Burning Ants" is a haunting account of the pains and trauma of growing up male. In a layered and non-didactic way, it details the process of emotional death many boys suffer as the are socialized to become men. The inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure are evocatively presented. Rather than glorifying and romanticizing boyhood, this film opens up wounds to let the poisons out.

"The Dupes" traces the destinies of three different men brought together by their dispossession, their despair and their hope for a better future. The protagonists are Palestinian refugees who are trying to make their way across the border into KUWAIT, the "Promised Land," concealed in the steel tank of a truck. Each one believes he can make a new life for himself, but as the film title suggests, their flight is no solution.

On November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak RABIN was assassinated after a peace rally in Tel Aviv. "Arena of Murder", the first film to be made on the subject, analyses the aftermath of RABIN's death. GITAI shows us a nation in mourning, from Haifa to Gaza to Tel Aviv. ...Whether it is Leah RABIN talking about imminent changes in Israel, a drive through the Gaza strip at night, Yigal AMIR reenacting the assassination on television, or pop icon Aviv GEFEN singing at a concert, each image is fraught with political meaning.