Cinemascope

Israel will be jubilantly celebrating its 60th Independence Day anniversary on Thursday. As an Israeli I will join the many flooding the streets in Tel Aviv, watching fireworks display, but at the same time my stomach keeps turning at the news of the continuous civil rights infringements in the occupied territories. As this is a movie blog and not a political blog, this next story is relevant:

Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir will have her film “Salt of this Sea” premiere next week at the Cannes film festival, in the Un Certain Regard section. But last week, when she tried to enter from Jordan into the West Bank, where she was born and where she lives, her entrance was denied after a long interrogation she was escorted back to the bus to send her back into Jordan. This is not the first time Ms. Jacir’s entrance into the occupied territories was banned. When she wanted to shoot scenes for her movie (co-produced by Danny Glover), she was not allowed, ultimately having to settle for the French area of Marseille double as a Palestinian town.

Annemarie Jacir on the set of her Cannes bound film “Salt of this Sea” (photo via vertigomagazine.co.uk)

Ms. Jacir has written about her troubles last week at the Israeli border for the blog Jordanian Indie Films:

April 29, 2008

I have been looking forward to this week for months now – it was to be one of the most important moments for me - the world premiere of my feature film “milh hadha al- bahr” (Salt of this Sea) in Palestine.

The premiere was to take place in Amari Refugee camp in Ramallah, with the cast and crew, the people who helped make this film happen, who believe in it, to be in attendance. An outdoor screening and an occasion to share the completion of a project which has been the result of a five-year struggle. What made this event so special was that it is also a big celebration for us – that we received the incredible news that the film was selected for the Cannes Film Festival as an Official Selection (May 14th – 25th, 2008).

As you may know, the Israeli Authorities have not allowed me to return to Palestine for 9 months now. Because of this we were not able to film a main scene of the film and in the end, the scene had to be shot in Marseilles, France. My lawyer has been working now for eight months on the issue of my return home. So for the premiere of the film, I also had an invitation from the French Consulate in Jerusalem, who have been supporters of the film, and the International Art Academy of Ramallah were co-sponsoring the screening. There was nothing I was looking forward to more than finally being back in Palestine and sharing the film.

From Amman, Jordan, I took the bus to the Allenby bridge (Sheikh Hussein) in order to cross the Jordanian border and enter the West Bank. I arrived at the bridge at 10 in the morning. The Israelis held me there for six hours, during which time I was interrogated approximately five times. In the beginning I was made to wait in the main room with all the other people crossing. After some time, I was taken to another section in the back, separated from the others, and spent the remaining period of my time waiting there alone. Every now and then people would come in and out of a door, sometimes to ask me questions, sometimes just on their way somewhere else. My telephone was taken from me.

At the end, I was then taken to the general room once more and asked to sit and wait. After about 20 minutes, a woman in a blue uniform (the others wore a different uniform), came towards me with my passport in her hand and four security agents behind her. She handed me my passport and said, “The Israeli Ministry of Interior has denied you entry.” I asked if a reason was given. She said, “You spend too much time here.” I was then deported - escorted by two of the agents out of the terminal and onto a bus back to Jordan.

I got on the bus. I felt like my legs weren’t strong enough to carry me.

Although any violation of human rights is deplorable, whether it is done to a blacksmith or a poet, the prosecution of the people of the arts is doubly tragic. It’s also downright stupid. One would hope that agents of the State see artists as ambassadors of hope and not as political offenders. And if humanity doesn’t register, maybe common sense should: it’s quite clear that the persecution of an artist would lead to protests by the international arts and letters community. Not a wise move from a PR point-of-view. Ms. Jacir’s film was nurtured at the Sundance Lab, and is headed to Cannes, where it will play alongside Israeli movies. This was supposed to be a moment of optimism, not of torment.

In the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine, Israel’s bleak future is examined through the eyes of one Israeli novelist, the great David Grossman, whose been a peace and anti-occupation activist for many years. Here’s a sombre paragraph:

The 60th anniversary of Israel’s birth—it gained independence on May 15, 1948—is meant to be a celebration, but Grossman sees darkness ahead. “Our army is big, we have this atom bomb, but the inner feeling is of absolute fragility, that all the time we are at the edge of the abyss.”

Read the piece in full here. Learn about Israel’s civil rights infringements in the occupied territories here. Protest here.