Emad Burnat is a Palestinian farmer who set out to record for himself the story of Israeli settlers moving into his local area. Guy Davidi is the filmmaker who helped him turn it into an award-winning documentary. Following a screening of the film, 5 Broken Cameras, at Sheffield DocFest, the two of them joined Jeremy Hardy to answer questions about it.
Jeremy, who made the film Jeremy Hardy vs. the Israeli Army in 2003, began by talking about his own anger at the situation in Palestine. He recommended that we should all become activists and gave us some suggestions for doing this. He then asked Emad: “How do you deal with your anger?”
Emad: It's right to control your anger and to control your personality from inside, not to go to the violence... We are trying always to control ourselves, to teach our kids to do this always.
Jeremy: How are things in Bil'il now?
Emad explained that people are still very unhappy because “The wall (fence?) near the village was removed, but not all the land was returned.”
(In the film we hear that the Israel court has declared that the fence should come down. It is some time before this is carried out, and then the much bigger wall is built a bit further from the village.)
Jeremy: How do you feel as a father, not being able to protect your children?
Emad: This is our life and they were born there. The only way I can protect them is to show them the reality. In their daily life they see soldiers and violence, so it's important that they understand the situation.
Jeremy: Are there ever, between the soldiers and the people, some moments of humanity?
Emad: Yes, I go through the gates and Gibreel is with me. You can see on the faces (of some) the humanity and their anger at the violence… so I thought this one would accept the olive branch from Gibreel. But most of them always try to use violence. They are young and don't want to be there.
Fellow director Guy Davidi confirmed this, saying that the young Israelis are usually very ignorant about the situation. They serve their time and just want to get home. They don't usually learn about the politics until later.
Guy explained how he got to know Emad, and said “I had the idea to make a film about Phil and Adeem (Emad's friends) after Phil's death, but it became a film about him [Emad], although until the last moment he didn't want it to focus on him.”
Questions from the audience to Emad:
“How could you sometimes be filming as you wanted, and sometimes you were being shot at?
Emad: It was important to be close to the soldiers to capture everything. I believed my camera would protect me. But it depends which commander …. They change every three months. Some are more violent than others.
“Why don't the soldiers take or destroy your camera?”
Emad: Sometimes they do confiscate the tape and shoot the camera. After my accident my friends filmed with my camera... I've been injured more than twenty times by rubber bullets. It's more than the five cameras of the title. I was even deported from my village to another place. But I came back and I continued.
“When Phil was shot, what happened to the soldiers?”
Emad: I sometimes give the footage to release people from the Israeli court. The camera has become my friend and my weapon.
Guy: An investigation into Phil's death was opened eventually. But the case is still open.
He explained that it's a military court. The army investigate themselves.
“Where is this film being shown?”
Guy said that the film has already been screened in several countries. It will show at the Jerusalem Film Festival and will later appear on Israeli TV. “We're going to have a U.K. distributor and hopefully community screenings.”
“What do you think mainstream Israeli reaction will be?”
Guy: The Israeli population is in denial. First it would be difficult to get them to come and view (a film about Palestine). We tried to avoid the tone of perpetrator and victim. Films are first about relations and connection. We wanted people to be angry. But we didn't want it to be provocative. We wanted to make a film that would engage people emotionally.
Emad said that he wanted to make a film about his family and friends – so that people could see something of real life, not just conflict.
