By: Vickie J. Rubinson
January has been a good month for Israeli filmmakers.
"The Law in These Parts," an Israeli documentary that turns a sharply-focused lens on the IDF's judicial system in the West Bank, took the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in the documentary category at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Utah this month.
The accolade comes less than a week after Joseph Cedar's feature film "Footnote" received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, the 10th such Israeli Oscar nomination in history.
"The Law in These Parts," directed by Israeli Ra'anan ALexandrowiz also earned the title of Best Documentary at the 2011 Jerusalem Film Festival.
In accepting his prize in Park City, Alexandrowicz said the documentary was the hardest film he had ever made. "This is an amazing moment for me as a filmmaker, but it's a film about a painful and unresolved subject," he said. "What you find out in the film and in other films in this festival, is that upholding law doesn't always lead to justice. It can even be used as a tool against certain segments of society. We have to oppose them and if necessary we have to break them."
When he accepted his award at the Jerusalem Film Festival, Alexandrowicz said, "I dedicate this award to all those who break the rules that divide people and promote ideologies under the guise of the law."
Also at Sundance, a film by Palestinian filmmaker and produced according to its official billing, as a joint effort of "Palestine, Israel and France," took the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award.
Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat won the award for his "5 Broken Cameras," which he co-directed with Israeli Guy Davidi. The film chronicles the passionate and often violent protests along the security barrier in Bil'in.
0 comments:
Post a Comment