FIVE BROKEN CAMERAS
Palestinian farm laborer Emad has five video cameras, and each of them tells a different part of the story of his village’s resistance to Israeli oppression. Emad lives in Bil’in, just west of the city of Ramallah in the West Bank.Using the first camera, he recorded how the bulldozers came to rip the olive trees out of the ground in 2005. Here, a wall was built directly through his fellow villagers’ land to separate the advancing Jewish settlements from the Palestinians. In the first days of resistance to the Jewish colonists and the ever-present Israeli soldiers, Emad’s son Gibreel was born.
Scenes shift from the infant growing into a precocious preschooler to the many peaceful acts of protest, and the steady progress of the construction of the dividing wall. Sympathizers from all over the world, including from Israel, provide help as resistance develops, but when the situation intensifies, people are arrested and villagers are killed. Emad keeps on filming despite pleas from his wife, who fears reprisals. It makes for an intensely powerful personal document about one village’s struggle against violence and oppression.
Festivals
Prix du Public et le Prix spécial du Jury à l’IDFA 2011,
Prix de la Réalisation Documentaire au Festival de Sundance 2012,
Meilleur Documentaire au Festival Tempo de Stockholm en Suède (the Stefan Jarl International documentary Award).
Prix de la Réalisation au One World Human Rights Festival 2012 de Prague.
Prix du Meilleur Documentaire du Eurodok Film Festival 2012 en Norvège.
Prix des Etudiants et le ‘Matter of Act prize’ au ‘Movies that Matter’ Human rights film Festival 2012 à la Haye aux Pays-Bas.
Prix Louis Marcorelles de l’Institut Français au Festival International de Documentaire le Cinéma du Réel à Paris 2012.
Prix du Jury Open City Docs, Londres, Royaume Uni. 2012
Prix du Meilleur Documentaire Jérusalem Film Festival 2012.
Prix du Meilleur Documentaire à la 9ème édition du Festival International du Film Golden Apricot à Yerevan, Arménie 2012.
Prix du Meilleur Documentaire Durban Film Festival, South Africa 2012
Prix du Meilleur film au Traverse City Film Festival (Festival de Michael Moore), USA, Août 2012
Prix du Public au IFI Stranger than Fiction Festival, Dublin, Irlande, Août 2012
Prix du Public dans la section “Doctubre” au Festival DocsDF, Mexico City, Mexique, Novembre 2012
Prix du Public et Prix des Détenues aux Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal, Canada, Novembre 2012
Prix Cinema Eye Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking à New York, Janvier 2013
Nominés aux Oscars 2013 du Meilleur Documentaire
International Emmy Award du meilleur documentaire 2013
Emad Burnat
Emad Burnat is a photographer and a freelance cameraman, who lives in Palestine. He filmed the subjects for television (Al-Jazeera, the Israeli channels 1, 2 and 10, Palestinian strings, …) He has worked with Reuters, and has worked on numerous documentary films: My Bil’in Love Palestine Kids,Open Close, Interrupted Streams …
Guy Davidi
Guy Davidi was born in Jaffa. He is documentary filmmaker and film professor. He realizes, shoots and edits films since the age of 16. He has worked on numerous documentaries as a cameraman : Hamza, Journal of an orange for France 3, Enraged, Carte Blanche for Yes docu. Guy Davidi then directed and produced his own films: the short and medium-length documentaries such as In Working Progress, Keywords, Women Defying Barriers were presented around the world at festivals. In 2010, the first feature-length documentary by Guy Davidi, Interrupted streams, was presented to the Jerusalem International Film Festival, and won the “David Silver Camera” at the Jewish Film Festival in Warsaw. His next film is titled Mixed feelings.
Broadcast
In theaters in New York May 2012
Aired on France 5 on March 22nd and October 9th, 2012
In Theaters in France Spring 2013
International Sales
Coproduction / presales
Guy DVD Films
Burnat Films Palestine
FRANCE TELEVISIONS
RTS