5 Broken Cameras Non-Violent Resistance in the Middle East
Winner at the Sundance Film Festival, 5 BROKEN CAMERAS is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit.
Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras, the filmmakers' collaboration follows one family's evolution over five years of village turmoil. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost. "I feel like the camera protects me," he says, "but it's an illusion."
"Uniquely powerful, putting faces and human consequences to a political dispute that will seemingly never end." - The Hollywood Reporter.
"An essential work both on filmmaking and political activism." - Slant Magazine.
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE - BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Sundance Film Festival - World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary 2012
Running Time
96 mins
Year
2011
Kanopy ID
1113659
Filmmakers
Languages
Subjects
Show More
Related videos
My So-Called Enemy - Celebrating Diversity, Interfaith and Intercultural Understanding
A coming-of-age film about the vital role of listening and empathy in bridging bridges across personal, cultural, religious, political and gender divides.
In the spirit of Michael Apted's "7 Up" series, the award-winning "My So-Called Enemy" follows six courageous Palestinian and Israeli teenage girls who participated in a cross-cultural women's…
Arna's Children
This personal narrative tells the story of a children's theatre group on the West Bank that was established by Arna Mer Khamis, who grew up in a Zionist family and later married a Palestinian Arab. Directed by Arna's son Juliano, Arna's Children shifts back and forth in time to show…
God's Messengers - Radical Groups and the Fate of the Middle East
An in-depth- intimate look at a group of idealistic radicals who live on the breaking point of an ancient conflict. Despite being small in numbers, these groups seem to be holding the fate of the Middle East in their hands.
In response to the death of his brother Gilaad in…
Live From Bethlehem
The Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency (MNA) emerged out of the ashes of the second Intifada to become the only independent news network in the Palestinian Territories and an increasingly prominent and influential journalistic force in the wider Middle East. Live from Bethlehem tells MNA's remarkable story. It chronicles the agency's…
Voices Across the Divide - Identity & History of Palestinians & Jews
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one of the most prominent, hot button debates in the US today. There is often little space for compassionate listening or deepening awareness. Access to information about the conflict is shaped by powerful forces and organizations. We believe a better future is possible based on mutual…
In the Land of Pomegranates - Stories of Israeli and Palestinian Youth
From Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Hava Kohav Beller comes her new film IN THE LAND OF POMEGRANATES, a suspenseful, multi-layered documentary centered on a group of young people who were born into a violent and insidious ongoing war. They are young Palestinians and Israelis invited to Germany to join a retreat…
States of UnBelonging - An Israeli Woman Explores Violence in the Middle East
Portrait of Israeli woman filmmaker explores violence in the Middle East
The core of this haunting meditation on war, land, the Bible, and filmmaking is a portrait of Revital Ohayon, an Israeli filmmaker and mother killed on a kibbutz near the West Bank. Director Lynne Sachs' journey to discover Revital…
Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of…
Holy Land - A Nonpartisan Observer's Year in the West Bank
Essential viewing for Middle East studies and for campuses engaged in debate about the Israel-Paelstine conflict, the film zeroes in on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and the Israelis and Palestinians who oppose them.
Director/producer Peter Cohn comes to the story with an outsider's unaffiliated perspective, gaining intimate access…
Wall - Before and After the Wall Between Israel and Palestine
A cinematic meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which the filmmaker blurs the lines of hatred by asserting her double identity as Jew and Arab. In an original documentary approach, the film follows the separation fence that is destroying one of the most historically significant landscapes in the world, while…
Life in Occupied Palestine - Eyewitness Photos and Stories
In Life in Occupied Palestine, Anna Baltzer, a graduate of Columbia University and the Jewish-American granddaughter of Holocaust refugees, documents her experience as a volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service in the West Bank. Baltzer provides a straightforward account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while chronicling the almost unbearable living…
9 Star Hotel
This unflinching documentary follows Ahmed and Muhammad, two of the many Palestinians who illegally cross the border into the Israeli city of Modi'in in search of work. Together they share food, belongings and stories, and live under the constant threat of imprisonment from soldiers and police. With raw, handheld images,…
Comments (2)
It is easy to shut down when watching a film that deals with such pain and controversy, and reduce the experience to a series of binaries: right and wrong, good and bad, Palestinian and Israeli. We hope people will put aside pre-judgments and approach the film with fresh eyes.
We made ...Read more
It is easy to shut down when watching a film that deals with such pain and controversy, and reduce the experience to a series of binaries: right and wrong, good and bad, Palestinian and Israeli. We hope people will put aside pre-judgments and approach the film with fresh eyes.
Read lessWe made "5 Broken Cameras" to inspire people in their own lives, beyond the scope of political discourse. Although politics are an inherent foundation of the film, we made sincere attempts to challenge our own biases, setting aside cliché and ideological traps. In the end, we have opened our hearts to viewers, and hope they will respond in kind.
i am so glad i watched this. thank you for sharing, for filming, for showing me a little bit of what its like. namaste.