Ido Haar is the director of 9 Star Hotel. After the film aired on P.O.V., viewers wrote in with questions for Ido. Read on for his responses.
Allen asks: Thanks for the film. I found similarities between the Palestinian men and Mexican migrant workers in America. Is this something you thought about as you were making the film? Do you think your portrait of Palestinian workers has other echoes around the world?
Ido Haar: I didn't think about the similarities between the Palestinian men and Mexican migrant workers in America, but I did try to find a way to show a universal story, a human story. Almost every place I've visited and shown the film, people find similarities between the situation of the Palestinian men and things in their communities; many people told me about the exploitation of illegal workers in Europe.
Nicholas asks: What is the status of the security barrier? Are there still places where Palestinian workers can sneak past the police and the army to work? Or is this no longer possible?
Haar: The status of the security barrier has changed since I shot the film. There are a lot less places where Palestinian workers can sneak into Israel. The separation fence is already closed in most areas. Getting in to Israel for a Palestinian worked is now much more expensive, dangerous and complicated.
Joe asks: While 9 Star Hotel is described as an "essentially non-political film", I believe it is nonetheless pro-Palestinian. Why did you not portray the Israeli families who have been victimized by Palestinian acts of terror?
Haar: In Israel and abroad, a lot of people are exposed to the stories of the Israeli families who have been victimized by Palestinian acts of terror. In this film I tried to bring a different point of view about the situation in Israel, I tried to show the story from the point of view of young Palestinians who are trying to survive and support their families in the complicated conflict.
Carly asks: How can people from the U.S. help these young Palestinian men?
Haar: It's hard for me to answer the question of how people from the U.S. can help these young Palestinian men. I hope that by knowing more aspects of the conflict, people may help pressure Israel and Palestine to work towards a peace solution.
Magalee asks: How did you find your subjects?
Haar: I grew up in a village near the city of Modi'in and I know that area very well. During my research I walked around the forests and the hills nearby and tried to talk with the workers. When I met Muhammad, he took me to the hideouts in the hills, and when I saw the place and met the workers there, I knew that I wanted to make the film there.
9 Star Hotel is the facetious name that Palestinian construction workers give to the pile of rocks that marks their clandestine nightly abode — a group of cardboard enclosures and tin-covered huts hidden in the brush-covered hills above the Israeli town of Modi'in. It is also the name of this week's P.O.V. film about the daily travails of these "illegals" as they hide from police at night so that they can work in Modi'in during the day.
The Palestinian men are neither militants nor activists, but ordinary youths placed by history in extraordinary circumstances who emerge as fully human — flawed and sympathetic. Caught in a strange and dangerous no-man's land between an Israel that must enforce laws to protect its citizens and a Palestinian Authority that can't or won't help them, they must risk capture and live in makeshift shelters simply to survive.
As a film made by an Israeli that takes the point of view of its young Palestinian subjects, 9 Star Hotel holds out a model for understanding, even across significant divides. The vérité-style documentary reminds viewers that behind all the political contention that so often defines regions like the West Bank, there are human stories. The film's subjects face universal struggles to make a living, care for family and prove their manhood. Individual tragedy is counterbalanced by resilience as the young men dream of a brighter future, despite the uncertainties that define their current situation.
Ahmed has no hope of fulfilling his dream of becoming police officer because he can't read and write. How is the experience of the men in the film like or unlike the experiences of day laborers or undocumented workers in other places? How is their situation like or unlike other places where borders divide areas of wealth and poverty?
Reflecting on Israel's treatment of Palestinians, Muhammad says, "If you shut a cat in a room, won't it jump at you?" If you could recommend to the Israeli government one policy change that would improve the lives of the men in the film, what would you recommend and why? Assume that the Palestinian Authority was not constrained politically. Similarly, what one policy change would you recommend to the Palestinian Authority?
Every Monday, journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.
In addition to the exciting tidbit that Michael Moore's next film will be a follow-up to Fahrenheit 9/11, the most enticing news from the Cannes Film Festival, which just concluded, is about an Israeli documentary called Waltz with Bashir. It's a fully animated film by a former Israeli soldier, Ari Folman, who's trying to reckon with the massacre of Palestinians (and his involvement) during the 1982 war in Lebanon. I've been a strong advocate of the brilliant animated work applied to documentaries by the likes of Brett Morgen (Chicago 10) and Jessica Yu (In the Realms of the Unreal, P.O.V. 2005). The animated documentary has pretty much become a standard, with the likes of Michael Moore (remember the brief history of America in Bowling for Columbine?) and Morgan Spurlock (Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?) using it to strong comic effect.
But in this, Waltz with Bashir, we see the possibility that a fully animated — from start to finish — documentary could be a success. The reviews have been quite positive. It recalls the recent Persepolis, or Richard Linklater's fantastic Waking Life, a trippy film about a boy in a dreamlike state, that was entirely created with rotoscopic technology in which a regular live-action film is shot in video. Animators then "draw" over the images to create an eerily life-like medium. (OK, so maybe when the same technique is used in Charles Schwab commercials it feels more annoying than eerie.)
Director Folman spent $2 million and four years making the film. First, he conducted interviews, then wrote a screenplay in which he stars as himself journeying back into his memories. The script was entirely shot in a studio (so, for example, when he talks with someone in a car, the person on the set holds a prop steering wheel). He then edited the footage into a full feature and broke that footage up into a storyboard of frames. Then, the animation team illustrated all of the frames. You can check out the trailer — I think it looks phenomenal.
Of course, a film like Waltz with Bashir poses all sorts of interesting questions, like is it a friggin' documentary in the first place if it's all reenacted — and animated, to boot?
I'd say yes, but let's wait to see the film. It's going to be released in Israel in June, and it was just picked up by the guys at Sony Pictures Classics, Michael Barker and Tom Bernard. They released the animated films Persepolis and Triplets of Belleville and I know how smart and savvy they can be with unconventional films, so I've got a lot of hope for this one. It's due for release some time this year.
P.O.V. executive director Simon Kilmurry attended DocAviv, a documentary film festival in Tel Aviv. He writes in with a report.
DocAviv, Israel's premiere documentary festival, wrapped up a remarkable 10th anniversary edition on April 12. I attended the festival for the first time this year, and had the pleasure of serving on the jury for the Israeli documentary competition. The festival opened with welcoming remarks by Shimon Peres, the current President of Israel, who emphasized the importance of documentaries in a democratic society. In particular, he noted the emergence of Israel as a source for some very important work.
The 2008 DocAviv Film Festival was held at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque
The opening gala featured the film My Beetle by Yishai Orien. The film has some elements that appear staged, thereby opening up the question of what constitutes a documentary. It also has a tongue-in-cheek quality, which the audience seemed to enjoy, but caused some dissent amongst regular festival-goers. Some questioned whether the film had sufficient "weight" to be an opening film, while others liked the film's Spurlock-esque tone. My Beetle was preceded by a hilarious tribute video that summed up the festival's programming as consisting solely of films on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Holocaust, and films by Avi Mugrabi. It was a nice light moment in a field that tends to take itself too seriously.
Of course, the reality of Israeli documentary is much more diverse and complex — reflecting the diversity of the region. There have been some remarkable films coming out of Israel over the past few years: Souvenirs, The Cemetery Club, Checkpoint, Stalags, Shayda, and Ido Haar's 9 Star Hotel (P.O.V. 2008, airing on July 22). While I did hear a little grumbling that some of this year's films were not up to those standards, there were some terrific films. I personally think the grumbling reflects the exceptionally high standards we have come to expect of documentaries from Israel. And certainly, the winners were some very distinguished films. Not to mention that the consistently sold-out screenings indicate that there's a real thirst for more high quality docs.
Filmmaker Jason Kohn (Manda Bala) and me in Israel.
The grand jury winner, Brides of the Desert by Ada Ushpiz, is an exceptionally intimate look at a Bedouin community and some of the women who struggle with the practice of polygamy. It was exquisitely photographed by Danor Glazer.
The winner of the Young and Promising Award, Yideshe Mama by Fima Shlick and Genadi Kuchuck, is a touching, painful and often humorous family story about Genadi's choice to marry an Ethiopian woman and his mother's fierce resistance to the marriage.
Other winners were:
My First War by Yariv Mozer — Special Jury Award
Adama by Iftach Shevach (one of my personal favorites) — Cinematography
Sixth Floor to Hell by Jonathan Ben Efrat — Editing
My fellow jury members were: Thom Powers (Toronto International Film Festival and Stranger than Fiction programmer and Cinema Eye Awards founder), Ronit Weiss-Berkowitz (a remarkable writer, producer and editor-in-chief of Keter Publishing), Laurence Hertzsberg (general director of the Forum des Images, Paris), and Eytan Harris (filmmaker of Abe Nathan: As The Sun Sets, and one of Israel's finest cinematographers).
Jury processes can be grueling, but this one was stimulating, exhausting and genuinely fun. Quite frankly, this team was one of the must stimulating groups of people I've had the pleasure to spend time with. Special mention must go to Thom for what was one of the most entertaining awards presentations in recent memory.
In the International competition, festival founder and director Ilana Tsur showcased some highlights from the international circuit: Up the Yangtze by Yung Chang (P.O.V. 2008), Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go by Kim Longinotto, Manda Bala by Jason Kohn, and Wings of Defeat by Risa Morimoto, among others. The winners in the international competition (which I have yet to see, but heard great things about) were:
Grand Jury Prize: Ironeaters by Shaheen Dill-Riaz
Special Jury Award: A Father's Music by Igor Heitzmann
Sidebar events at the festival included a tribute to Nicholas Philibert (Etre et Avoir) and a presentation by Diane Weyerman of films produced by Participant Productions (Chicago 10, Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains). Also featured was a screening of Made In L.A., the recent P.O.V. film by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, and a panel conversation between me and David Fisher, filmmaker and head of the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema & T.V., on P.O.V. and U.S. public television.
One other film in the festival that struck a chord with me was Esther Hoffenberg's Discorama — Signé Glaser, an elegiac tribute to one of France's most influential figures during a classic period of French pop music. The archival footage of Glaser with Francois Hardy, Juliette Greco, and Serge Gainsbourg is breathtaking, and the performances are out of this world.
Non-festival highlights of the week included fascinating and disturbing side trips. The first, organized by the aforementioned David Fisher, was a trip to Nazareth to meet with some filmmakers working out of Alarz TV. While the company focuses mostly on reportage for outlets such as Al Jazeera and Lebanese news, they are also producing longer-form creative projects. It was fascinating to see some of the work that is being produced by Israeli Arab and Druze filmmakers. Some of this work is being supported by The Green House Fund, which mentors filmmakers from across the Middle East. Particularly promising was a work-in-progress by Osnat Hadid which I'm eager to see more of.
The second trip included a tour of the separation barrier and a visit to Hebron, organized by Oren Yakobovich, video department director of B'Tselem. B'Tselem, an Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, is the leading Israeli organization training people to use video and citizen journalism to monitor and document conflict and improve human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The situation in Hebron is very tense and far too complicated for me to explain, but it is eye-opening to witness it first hand.
Ah, the flush feeling of having a documentary that receives high accolades and big box office returns! As I mentioned last week, not many doc filmmakers have felt that way this year, which puts Charles Ferguson among the elite few. I was at a fancy screening and reception this week for his film No End in Sight, a great doc about how the U.S. got into such a quagmire in Iraq. The movie was shown at Scandinavia House on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The audience included former jailed New York Times journalist Judith Miller, who took copious notes. Afterwards we were whisked away in cars to be wined and dined at a private room in the Hotel Plaza Athenee. No End in Sight is deservedly winning plenty of critics' awards, has mustered $1.4 million at the box office, and there's buzz that it could be the movie to beat at the Oscars.
Ferguson was in a good mood, as well he should be. I talked to him about all the other movies this year that have not been as well received as his. For Ferguson, the two most tragically under-loved and underseen movies this year were Manda Bala by Jason Kohn, the multi-dimensional story of Brazilian culture by way of frog farming and the kidnapping epidemic there, and Hot House by Shimon Dotan, which takes a close look at Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli prison.
I haven't seen Hot House, but I had to agree with Ferguson about Manda Bala: it is one of my favorite unseen docs from this year, along with My Kid Could Paint That by Amir Bar-Lev and War/Dance by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix.
A film still from Manda Bala
At first viewing, I wasn't really taken with Manda Bala, mainly because of the poor image quality. I wasn't sure whether to blame the Angelika Theater's projector (and not just the F train rumbling underneath) for throwing off the image, or blame the poor image quality on the film itself. Ferguson, however, assured me that the film looks gorgeous when it's screened properly; director Jason Kohn used the same camera lens Stanley Kubrick developed for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Even with my frustrations with the film quality, though, I was still swept away by Kohn's complex tale. The director once worked under Errol Morris and the film owes much to Morris' affectionate way with both victims of injustice and the plain bizarreness of humanity.
