The Palestinian Authority's bid this year to have the United Nations recognize statehood for an independent Palestine has been derailed for the time being. The United States and its allies in the Security Council have prevented the matter from coming to a vote. Part of the story of that so-far unsuccessful effort is told by Participant Media's new documentary State 194.
The movie follows Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad`s efforts to create the institutions necessary to have the stability for Palestine to be able to function as an independent country. Fayyad,who was appointed to his position by PA President Abbas, is a former International Monetary Fund economist who by all accounts is an honest proponent of peace and a highly competent leader. But he is one person and his views are not generally reflective of the whole of Palestinian society, and that is the part of the story that State 194 completely avoids.
In fact, if you were to rely on the image of Palestine conveyed by State 194, you would think that Palestinian society in the West Bank is a secular, progressive one where in fact the opposite is true. In some ways, it`s as if someone filming a community of Inuit living in igloos north of Tuktoyaktuk were to present it as reflective of Canadian society. Sure, it`s there, but it sure isn`t a full and accurate representation of our society.
The film tries to make the case, as did its Israeli director Dan Setton and producer Elise Pearlstein in an interview I conducted with them yesterday, that Palestine is ready for statehood today. The facts on the ground belie that.
State 194 is its director`s expression of hope for peace. But the movie is also blatant propaganda. Subtly anti-Israel and overtly pro-Palestinian, it places all the blame for the Israeli-Palestinian problem on `the occupation`without in any way addressing what the reasons for that occupation are. The neighbouring Arab states tried to wipe out Israel before `the occupation`and no one was interested in creating an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza when they were ruled, respectively, by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967. Then the Arab solution to the need for a Palestinian homeland was to eliminate Israel, a view still held by many in the West Bank and the government in Gaza. These are impediments to peace that are ignored in State 194.
The disaster in Gaza demonstrates that if the conditions for statehood don`t exists, anarchy and terrorism will readily take over. Fayyad`s efforts are honorable and important, but he is far from achieving his goals. Palestine is not a democratic society and indications are that if free elections were to be held there, he would be defeated and removed from office.
Ironically, as if to demonstrate the discrepancy between the image the film tries to create and reality, Salam Fayyed was scheduled to be at the Toronto Film Festival gala premier of State 194 on Monday night, but had to cancel because of riots in Ramallah over the economy.
The first movie ever distributed by Participant Media, which produced State 194 (and other notable documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman), was another pro-Palestinian movie called Arna`s Children. That movie followed a theatre group in Jenin where Juliano Mer Khamis, who was the son of a Jewish Israeli mother and Palestinian Arab father, provided peaceful means for expressions of Palestinian self-determination and opposition to Israel. In yet another tragic irony, he was murdered last year by Palestinian radicals who objected to his providing a non-violent outlet that could divert their youth from the path of jihad.
That is part of the reality of Palestine that State 194 doesn't want to talk about, but until it is resolved, remains an overwhelming obstacle to peace.
Setton's movie presents a good, detailed look at a tiny piece of a larger puzzle. If you keep that in mind, while realizing that you're not seeing anything close to the larger picture, for all its flaws, State 194 is worth sitting through.
EYE ON A CRAZY PLANET
Showing posts with label Participant Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Participant Media. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Palestinians and Israelis share a martyr
On Monday, Juliano Mer Khamis was murdered by a terrorist in the West Bank town of Jenin. He was 53 years old. It happened outside the new incarnation of the theatre founded by Juliano and his mother, Arna Mer, where they taught Palestinian children theatre arts, and that there were ways other than violence to express themselves. After Arna's death, Juilano continued his mother's work with children in Jenin.
Juliano was the son of an Israeli Jewish mother and a Palestinian Arab father. He identified mostly with his father's culture, in large part due to his Jewish mother's activism on behalf of Palestinians within Israel and in the West Bank.
His own sympathies and activism always were on behalf of the Palestinian side. His goal was to teach them that resistance didn't need to take the form of murder and terrorism. The people of Jenin who knew him loved him. But to Hamas, he was a threat. They labeled him a "Zionist Jew whose hands should be cut off." The reward for his struggle to teach a way other than violence was his murder at the hands of people who see violence as a virtue.
An accomplished actor in Israel, Juliano was not well known outside the Middle East. I met him when he was the star of a micro-budget movie shot in Toronto called Nothing To Lose, which was produced by my friend Julian Grant, who hired me to be the movie's Prop Master. The movie itself was the type that gets parodied in movies about making low-budget movies. It was financed with "felafel dollars," which is to say that the main investors were Palestinian-Canadians who owned some felafel joints.
It starred Juliano, a half-Israeli, half-Palestinian in real-life, as a Hispanic street tough trying to go straight, with Toronto doubled for Chicago. Other actors in it were Baywatch's Alexandra Paul, Michael Gazzo, in his last role before he died, and Paul Gleason, who fans of the Breakfast Club will remember as the principal. One of the financiers, a swarthy, boisterous fellow with a stereotypical Middle-Eastern bushy moustache, appeared in the film as a villain, and he would show up every day with felafels for the whole cast and crew. Yes, every day. I don't think anyone involved in the production ate a felafel for a year after the movie wrapped.
Juliano and I had a number of conversations on the set. He was a sweetheart who recreated his performance in Canadian director Simcha Jacobovici's movie about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Deadly Currents, for me over lunch when I told him I'd enjoyed it. He was also a wild character, full of life, passionate, compassionate and with the outsized ego of a good-looking lead actor. There was one occasion when I had to restrain a stunt man from pounding out Juliano who, taking a boxing scene too seriously, didn't pull his punches.
That was his style.
Years later, our paths again crossed, indirectly in an odd sense. I was one of the first group of executives at Participant Productions in Beverly Hills. At that point, Participant wanted movies to distribute to get its feet wet as a new, but powerful player on the Hollywood circuit.
Arna's Children was a documentary Juliano made about his mother's theatre group in Jenin.
I had reservations about the movie. It was one-sided in its portrayal as Israel as the villain in its conflict with the Palestinians. It showed Palestinian suffering and Israeli actions that caused it, but like most pro-Palestinian propaganda, never showed the context of Israel's actions being in response to Palestinian violence. However, it did give a rare glimpse into the culture of Palestinian youth in the West Bank -- the hate that they grow up with toward not only Israelis, but Jews more generally. It was Juliano's Arab side that bought him his street cred in such a milieu, just as his mother's marriage to an Arab bought hers.
Jeff Skoll, my friend who founded Participant, was moved by Juliano's movie and was one of the judges who helped award it the Best Documentary prize at the Tribeca festival in 2004. Jeff, whose passion as a philanthropist is to celebrate the work of great social entrepreneurs, decided Arna's Children would be the first movie to have Participant's name on it.
Though filled with a spirit of hope, Juliano's documentary also showed how efforts at peace usually fail in a Palestinian society that treasures martyrdom above life. Many of the kids in his theatre group eventually became armed fighters, and some became suicide bombing terrorists.
There's a secret to peace in the Middle East that Juliano's murderers -- who at this point appear to be from Hamas -- don't want the rest of Palestinian society to learn. The first step is simple: stop trying to kill each other and stop teaching others to hate and to kill.
Actors are grown-ups who play make believe for a living. Juliano was an actor who believed that hope and reason could overcome hate. His murderers created a martyr out of Juliano for both sides in the Israel/Palestine conflict. If his goals succeed, then Israel would have a Palestinian neighbour who understands that violence is not the first resort to conflict settlement, and Palestinians would have a culture built on hope and love instead of the worship of death.
(You can see all of Juliano's film, Arna's Children, online at Google Video.)
Juliano was the son of an Israeli Jewish mother and a Palestinian Arab father. He identified mostly with his father's culture, in large part due to his Jewish mother's activism on behalf of Palestinians within Israel and in the West Bank.His own sympathies and activism always were on behalf of the Palestinian side. His goal was to teach them that resistance didn't need to take the form of murder and terrorism. The people of Jenin who knew him loved him. But to Hamas, he was a threat. They labeled him a "Zionist Jew whose hands should be cut off." The reward for his struggle to teach a way other than violence was his murder at the hands of people who see violence as a virtue.
An accomplished actor in Israel, Juliano was not well known outside the Middle East. I met him when he was the star of a micro-budget movie shot in Toronto called Nothing To Lose, which was produced by my friend Julian Grant, who hired me to be the movie's Prop Master. The movie itself was the type that gets parodied in movies about making low-budget movies. It was financed with "felafel dollars," which is to say that the main investors were Palestinian-Canadians who owned some felafel joints.
It starred Juliano, a half-Israeli, half-Palestinian in real-life, as a Hispanic street tough trying to go straight, with Toronto doubled for Chicago. Other actors in it were Baywatch's Alexandra Paul, Michael Gazzo, in his last role before he died, and Paul Gleason, who fans of the Breakfast Club will remember as the principal. One of the financiers, a swarthy, boisterous fellow with a stereotypical Middle-Eastern bushy moustache, appeared in the film as a villain, and he would show up every day with felafels for the whole cast and crew. Yes, every day. I don't think anyone involved in the production ate a felafel for a year after the movie wrapped.
Juliano and I had a number of conversations on the set. He was a sweetheart who recreated his performance in Canadian director Simcha Jacobovici's movie about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Deadly Currents, for me over lunch when I told him I'd enjoyed it. He was also a wild character, full of life, passionate, compassionate and with the outsized ego of a good-looking lead actor. There was one occasion when I had to restrain a stunt man from pounding out Juliano who, taking a boxing scene too seriously, didn't pull his punches.
That was his style.
Years later, our paths again crossed, indirectly in an odd sense. I was one of the first group of executives at Participant Productions in Beverly Hills. At that point, Participant wanted movies to distribute to get its feet wet as a new, but powerful player on the Hollywood circuit.
Arna's Children was a documentary Juliano made about his mother's theatre group in Jenin.
I had reservations about the movie. It was one-sided in its portrayal as Israel as the villain in its conflict with the Palestinians. It showed Palestinian suffering and Israeli actions that caused it, but like most pro-Palestinian propaganda, never showed the context of Israel's actions being in response to Palestinian violence. However, it did give a rare glimpse into the culture of Palestinian youth in the West Bank -- the hate that they grow up with toward not only Israelis, but Jews more generally. It was Juliano's Arab side that bought him his street cred in such a milieu, just as his mother's marriage to an Arab bought hers.
Jeff Skoll, my friend who founded Participant, was moved by Juliano's movie and was one of the judges who helped award it the Best Documentary prize at the Tribeca festival in 2004. Jeff, whose passion as a philanthropist is to celebrate the work of great social entrepreneurs, decided Arna's Children would be the first movie to have Participant's name on it.
Though filled with a spirit of hope, Juliano's documentary also showed how efforts at peace usually fail in a Palestinian society that treasures martyrdom above life. Many of the kids in his theatre group eventually became armed fighters, and some became suicide bombing terrorists.
There's a secret to peace in the Middle East that Juliano's murderers -- who at this point appear to be from Hamas -- don't want the rest of Palestinian society to learn. The first step is simple: stop trying to kill each other and stop teaching others to hate and to kill.
Actors are grown-ups who play make believe for a living. Juliano was an actor who believed that hope and reason could overcome hate. His murderers created a martyr out of Juliano for both sides in the Israel/Palestine conflict. If his goals succeed, then Israel would have a Palestinian neighbour who understands that violence is not the first resort to conflict settlement, and Palestinians would have a culture built on hope and love instead of the worship of death.
(You can see all of Juliano's film, Arna's Children, online at Google Video.)
Sunday, September 12, 2010
A Trillion Dollar Industry with Zero Accountability
That's how the US educational system has been described by American education reformer Geoffrey Canada in a discussion following the new documentary Waiting for Superman.
David Guggenheim and Participant Media, the director and production company responsible for An Inconvenient Truth, will be releasing a movie next month about how America's schools are robbing a generation of children of the opportunity to receive an education that enables them to compete in the global marketplace.
The public school system in the US was the zenith of world education two generations ago, but has fallen to one of the lowest standards in the post-industrial world. Virtually no state in the union has better than 40% of its students who have achieved grade-level reading and math skills. In the District of Columbia, it's a dismal 12%.
There are a variety of reasons for the failure but one of the culprits that Waiting for Superman focuses on is the Teachers Union.
The tenure system in US public schools virtually guarantees that teachers cannot be fired. No matter how incompetent or uninterested a teacher may be in their job, they can't be removed, and class after class, year after year, students will receive an inferior education from that teacher.
Waiting for Superman follows 5 families who are trying to get their children into charter schools, which use public money, but don't have to follow the rules and formulas proscribed by the Public School system. Geoffrey Canada, who is featured in the documentary, has started up many of these charter schools that ensure high standards of teaching and provide students with structure and discipline. The results of Geoffrey Canada's teaching methods have been spectacular.
Geoffrey Canada has spoken on 60 Minutes about how as a child he cried when he learned Superman wasn't real. His sorrow was because of the lost hope in a superhero who could arrive and ensure that justice is done.
America's wait for a Superman to save the public education system may be a long one, but at least reformers like Geoffrey Canada, though without a cape, are out there saving one school at a time.
David Guggenheim and Participant Media, the director and production company responsible for An Inconvenient Truth, will be releasing a movie next month about how America's schools are robbing a generation of children of the opportunity to receive an education that enables them to compete in the global marketplace.
The public school system in the US was the zenith of world education two generations ago, but has fallen to one of the lowest standards in the post-industrial world. Virtually no state in the union has better than 40% of its students who have achieved grade-level reading and math skills. In the District of Columbia, it's a dismal 12%.
There are a variety of reasons for the failure but one of the culprits that Waiting for Superman focuses on is the Teachers Union.
Waiting for Superman follows 5 families who are trying to get their children into charter schools, which use public money, but don't have to follow the rules and formulas proscribed by the Public School system. Geoffrey Canada, who is featured in the documentary, has started up many of these charter schools that ensure high standards of teaching and provide students with structure and discipline. The results of Geoffrey Canada's teaching methods have been spectacular.
Geoffrey Canada has spoken on 60 Minutes about how as a child he cried when he learned Superman wasn't real. His sorrow was because of the lost hope in a superhero who could arrive and ensure that justice is done.
America's wait for a Superman to save the public education system may be a long one, but at least reformers like Geoffrey Canada, though without a cape, are out there saving one school at a time.
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