A PALESTINIAN, AN ISRAELI AND AN AMERICAN ON THE SAME PANEL
An extremely interesting conversation on the Palestinian issue took place today, Tuesday, March 4th, at the packed Olympion Renault theatre in the press conference given by Palestinian Hany Abu Asad, Israeli Ram Loevy and American S. Smith Patrick in the framework of the 5th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival-Images of the 21st Century.
S. Smith Patrick started off to speak about her film The Children of Ibdaa: “It would be impossible to make the film today because the children wouldn’t be allowed through the check-points. In 1999 we would just pick them up in a van and ride around shooting film. I wanted to show the Palestinian’s sense of dignity which I myself was also unfamiliar with. When I met the children of Palestine I adored and admired them. We have a negative image of Palestinians in the USA. It will take time to focus on their problem. Needless to say, there is no market for a film like mine”.
Hany Abu Asad spoke about his film Ford Transit: “It’s the portrait of a taxi driver who understands the reasons behind suicide bombings. There are more than 200,000 informants in Palestine. They just make things worse. The Palestinian society ends up paying for it. The Israeli’s worst crime is buying off these peoples’ conscious”.
Ram Loevy had to say about his film Gaza Closed, Closure: “I’m an Israeli but I’m also against my government’s actions in the Gaza strip. I wanted for the Israelis to see the Palestinian’s human side. The situation in the Gaza strip has been unbearable for the past 40 years. We’re all tired of this conflict. My film focuses on a family of Palestinians that verbally assaulted me when I tried to explain the beliefs of the Israeli left party. I’d also like to point out that all of these films expose only a small part of the situation and not a complete picture of it”.
Hany Abu Asad and Ram Loevy were asked if they believed in a feasible solution for the problem and both were cautious. “The only feasible solution is one country for both Israelis and Palestinians. Anything else would lead nowhere. Needless to say, this would be suicide for Israel”, said Hany Abu Asad. Ram Loevy, on the other hand believes that, “The ideal solution would be for things to return to the state that they were in before 1967. We should return Judea, Samaria and Gaza to the Palestinian people. We must have boundaries and borders in our lives”.
Asad disagreed, saying that, “We must be realistic. There is no way that things will simply be split up and divided among us. We’ll have to learn to live with each other in the same country. If Saron can come up with a fair solution the Palestinians will make him their Prime Minister forever. Israel’s power and influence are mainly responsible for the conflict, which isn’t to say, though, that the Palestinian regime has been flawless either”.
Nearing the end of the press conference, Ram Loevy claimed that he has grown tired of shooting films about the Palestinian problem but there is always a necessity to return to it: “I wish I could make a film about love. Isn’t love a wonderful thing?” Hany Abu Asad added that, “We lost the war but we still need to express ourselves. They want to hide us but we can be seen through cinema.”
