5 Broken Cameras: Film Screening
- a Cinema Politica Film Screening
Weekly protest in Bi'ilin
-
Monday November 12, 2012
Screening begins at 7pm
Room H-110
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve West
Admission is free. Donations are welcome
Described as “part resistance journal, part home movie, and part memorial”, 5 Broken Cameras charts five years of popular resistance through the eyes of one family. Since 2005, the West Bank village of Bil’in has been struggling to defend its land and livelihood, staging weekly demonstrations against the construction of the apartheid wall and of illegal settlements on its agricultural lands.
This screening is a collaboration between Cinema Politica and the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival, co-sponsored by the Fondation Alter-Ciné, the Coalition Pour la Justice et Paix en Palestine , and Tadamon!. Director Emad Burnat will be in attendance to answer questions and engage in discussion following the screening.
5 Broken Cameras
Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi/ PS – FR – IL / 2011 / 90 ‘ / Arabic – Hebrew / S.T. English
An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements.
Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the film was assembled by Burnat and Israeli co-director Guy Davidi. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat’s cameras, the filmmakers’ collaboration follows one family’s evolution over five years of village turmoil.
Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost. “I feel like the camera protects me,” he says, “but it’s an illusion.”
Lifelong inhabitant of the central West Bank village of Bil’in , Emad Burnat is a freelance cameraman and photographer with experience filming for Al-Jazeera and Palestinian television. He has contributed to several documentaries, including Bil’in My Love, Palestine Kids, Open Close, and Interrupted Streams.
Born in Jaffa , Guy Davidi is a documentary filmmaker and teacher who has been directing, editing, and shooting films since the age of 16. His short documentaries include In Working Progress, Keywords, and Women Defying Barriers; his first feature film, Interrupted Streams, premiered in 2010 at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
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