Israel - An Immigration Country

AL KARAMAH - Human Dignity

Frode Storaas
Norway 1997 | 40 Min. | BetaSP, OmeU
Although much has been writ­ten and shown about Pales­tini­ans and Israelis, one aspect has gen­er­al­ly been left out: the Pales­tin­ian minor­i­ty in Israel. More than 900 000 Pales­tin­ian-Arab cit­i­zens live … read more

DIX ANS APRÈS

François Margolin
France, Israel 1996 | 80 Min. | 35 mm, OmeU
»Ten years ago, I went to Ethiopia to film the people known as ‘Falashas’ or black Jews, who were mal­treat­ed for their strict obser­vance of the Jewish reli­gion and who … read more

FALASHAS

François Margolin
France 1985 | 52 Min. | BetaSP, OmfU
In the val­leys on the high­lands of Siemen in the North of Gondar (Ethiopia) 1983 had lived more than 30.000 Falashas, which means in col­lo­qui­al Amhar­ish »stranger«. In the occi­den­tal … read more

Good or Bad, Black and White

Amit Goren
Germany, Israel 1995 | 82 Min. | BetaSP, OmU

A car­a­van camp in a desert­ed mil­i­tary base is the first home in Israel for immi­grants arriv­ing from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Peter from the Ukraine and Chan­nan from Samark­land meet with Fit­igch from Gandar and Gavru from Addis-Ababa. Their cross-cul­tur­al encounter height­ens the already strong feel­ings of uproot­ing, dis­lo­ca­tion and alien­ation. The film fol­lows Peter’s efforts to real­ize his pre-immi­gra­tion dreams of a »Fan­tak­ti­ka Israel« described in offi­cial brochures and his attempts to bring his mother and sis­ters out of the Ukraine. During the six months of prepa­ra­tion and research for GOOD OR BAD, BLACK AND WHITE I vis­it­ed most of the trail­er home (car­a­van) camps which had sprung up with great haste through­out Israel. My ini­tial emo­tion­al reac­tion was empa­thy for the thou­sands of new immi­grants that had arrived from the former Soviet Union and Ehtiopia. Their dream of making a new home in the ancient Jewish land, turned now a modern coun­try, seemed to have col­lapsed in a dusty cloud of iso­la­tion and despa­ra­tion. How else could one feel about the dis­turbing­ly ugly view of end­less rows of car­a­van homes set in a barren land­scape under a scorch­ing sun?

»An old Ethiopi­an woman with a shy smile com­pared her car­a­van home to a tree. – ‘How is that?’ I inquired. – ‘Like a tree’ she said ‘it moves with the wind, back and forth«, refer­ring to the thin spikes some 30 cen­time­ters off the ground, on which her car­a­van was placed. (…) I found an end­less array of human sto­ries at the Bat Hazor Car­a­van Camp, some pes­simistic and tragic, others inspir­ing and opti­mistic. Yet beyond the per­son­al sto­ries there seemd to be a larger over­whelm­ing prob­lem which slowly revealed itself. In a camp where there are such extreme cul­tur­al, lin­gual and racial dif­fer­ences between Rus­sians and Ethiopi­ans the threat of vio­lence hung heavy in the dusty air. It was clear right from the start that although they shared a common reli­gion they could not find it in them­selves to accept each other as equals. What about assim­i­la­tion in this kind of atmos­phere? The camp’s iso­la­tion and dis­tance from any Israeli urban cen­ters only served to com­pli­cate an already charged sit­u­a­tion.« (Amit Goren)

MAKOM AVODA

Nurith Aviv
France, Germany, Israel 1998 | 81 Min. | BetaSP, OmU
Mosa­hav Shekef is an agri­cul­tur­al coop­er­a­tive in the Lachish region. It is inhab­it­ed by Israelis – some are sabras, some were born in Maroc­co, Argenti­na or Iraq. Today there are … read more

PINKASDREAM

Ruth Walk
Israel 1998 | 52 Min. | BetaSP, OmeU
Pinkas, a 75-years old agri­cul­tur­al worker from Moshav Rehov in the Beit Sh’an Valley, wakes up one morn­ing trou­bled by a dream in which his sister Simha has appeared. When … read more

THE SOUTH - ALICE NEVER LIVED HERE

Sini Bar-David
Israel 1998 | 82 Min. | BetaSP, OmeU
The film focus­es the prob­lems of sephardic Jews in Israel. Three women, three gen­er­a­tions who strug­gle to sur­vive, to have a mean­ing­ful life and to express their voice in the … read more