The Fading Valley Film Comes to NY in November as Part of The Other Israel Film Festival

If you know people who might attend, please give this posting wings and bring it to their attention. This is a very special attempt to break the silence around the goings on in the Jordan Valley.

(TEL AVIV) - The Fading Valley is a poetic film about the Jordan Valley, the Palestinians who live there and the challenges they face as they struggle to survive under the restrictions of the Occupation. I highly recommend this beautiful and thought provoking documentary. It is aptly chosen to present a view of "The Other Israel". The film was produced by MachsomWatch, please note the screening specified by Other Israel Film Festival in NY in mid-November.

If you know people who might attend, please give this posting wings and bring it to their attention. This is a very special attempt to break the silence around the goings on in the Jordan Valley.

FILMS

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Themes: Documentary, Education, Family

Arabani

Israel,
2013,
Arabic, Hebrew,
82 minutes

Director: Adi Adwan

The first feature film ever made by an Israeli Druze filmmaker. Newly divorced from his Jewish wife, Yosef returns to his hometown, the Druze village of Sumaka. There the community gives him the cold-shoulder while his mixed-race teenagers face outright ostracism, misunderstanding, and intimidation. In an understated, nuanced style, the story slowly, confidently unspools, detailing the slow erosion of social and emotional barriers and budding of young romance. The director’s intimate knowledge of the Druze is evident in the precise domestic details which build to make an emotional, impactful film.

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Dancing in Jaffa

Israel/USA,

2013,

Hebrew, Arabic, English,

88 minutes

Director: Hilla Medalia

How do you foster understanding between Jewish and Palestinian Israeli youths raised in distrust of one another? Renowned dancer Pierre Dulaine, born in Jaffa to an Irish father and Palestinian mother, proposed his own unique solution: Ballroom dance! Hilla Medalia’s documentary looks in on five grade schools in Dulaine’s hometown which have agreed to host his “Dancing Classrooms” program. Focusing on Dulaine, three of his program’s participants, and a teacher at one of Jaffa’s rare “mixed” schools, Medalia documents the ten week build-up to a final competition that demands teamwork between the 11- and 12-year-old dancers of integrated Jewish-Palestinian backgrounds. Variety called this festival favorite “uplifting” for its illustration of how a craft can build self-esteem and how cooperation can blow down walls of prejudice, while The Jerusalem Post dubbed it “Mad, Hot Ballroom with a Middle Eastern twist.”

Co-presented by AJC, Partners for Progressive Israel, Foundation for Jewish Culture, and Dancing Classrooms.

Dove’s Cry

Israel, 2013, Arabic, Hebrew, 52 minutes
Director: Ganit Ilouz

Hadeel, a lively 27-year old Arab teacher from Israel’s Wadi Ara region teaches spoken Arabic to a sixth-grade class at a Jewish elementary school as part of “a cross-cultural outreach program.” . The camera follows Hadeel over a year, during which she faces casual prejudice at work and mounting pressure to marry at home. While Hadeel remains convinced she can make a difference and moments of curiosity and dialogue with her students and co-workers offer reason for optimism, in candid conversations with the camera and her sister, Hadeel confesses fears and doubts. A humane and even-handed film about communication at any cost.

Co-presented by Inter Agency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues and Givat Haviva.

Themes: Documentary, Education

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Good Garbage

Israel, 2012, Arabic, 55 minutes
Director: Shosh Shlam and Ada Ushpiz

For those living in the Israeli settlements around the southern West Bank, the Hebron Hills garbage dump is just a place where trash goes and is forgotten. For the hundreds of resourceful Palestinians in the nearby city of Yatta, however, that trash is a treasure, a way to feed their families, a way of life. Directors Shlam and Ushpiz fix their camera on these scavengers who live off of prosperity’s cast-offs, men and boys who brave deplorable conditions and Israeli soldiers to rummage through the trash for material that has a second life—scrap metal, old clothes—and which might bring their families incrementally closer to a better life. A portrait of shared striving which narrows to unforgettable individual stories, using an oblique approach to highlight the vast disparities of wealth in modern Israel. “A truly blood-chilling… excellent film.” —Haaretz

Co-presented by B'Tselem, T'ruah and Green Zionist Alliance.

Themes: Documentary, Human Rights

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The Fading Valley

Israel, 2013, Arabic, Hebrew, 54 minutes
Director: Irit Gal

Israel’s Jordan Valley is one of the country’s most fertile regions—but today that natural bounty isn’t shared equally. The Palestinian farmers now work land that has become desert because of a “drought” caused by deliberate decisions. The proud farmers who remain discuss their way of life as it slips away: Wells go dry as water is siphoned off by Jewish settlers; shepherds’ grazing pastures are annexed by the military. Robbed of their traditional livelihood, many farmers must abandon their treasured independence for menial, low-paying work in cities and neighboring settlements, where the always freshly-watered lawns provide a mocking commentary on inequality.

Co-presented by Jstreet Education Fund, Friends of the Earth Middle East, and Green Zionist Alliance.

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