We Are Together

Thank you EIFF…

- The Rise and fall of Renaissance Films: Exploring Independent Film Business Models
-To Die in Jerusalem (which I did pay for as I had sans pass) RECOMMENDED
-Document Shorts
-Beirut Stories (amateurish/document shorts)
-Extraordinary Rendition (fiction yet ‘real’ complicit kidnapping of British citizen by the CIA)
- Western Trunk Line (Melancholic domestic drama set in a Chinese Mining Village)
-Chris Cooper: In Person (of American Beauty fame: Military father)
-Bridge Over the Wadi and Strawberry Fields (met the director of former) RECOMMENDED
-State of the World (somewhat eclectic collection of commissioned shorts that formed a feature, from around the world- I’ve never seen so many people walk out of a screening before- spoke to the producer later)
-We Are Together (met the director) RECOMMENDED
-Blind Mountain (based of real life human trafficking; selling wives to Chinese rural villages)
-Serpent (French Thriller)

If I’d gotten my pass at the beginning, the list would have been at least twice as long. But 3 films a day for 3 days is as much as I have ever done. All but one film was at the Filmhouse so I would go from one screen to the next, sometimes with an hour break, sometimes 15mins.

I had met Hilla Medalia who had directed To Die in Jerusalem after the screening. We chatted as I walked her and her friends to the restaurant. One of her friends was Barak Heymann who, directed Bridge Over the Wadi. Both were Israeli and had made fairly successful first time documentaries, which were fair to both Jewish and Palestinian perspectives. Hilla had started her doc while still a student with a PD150. Both took years to shoot and finish. I bumped into Barak today at the café and we spoke for a little bit. We were actually going to see the same film, We Are Together. Barak wanted to see this film that seem to steal every award from his film in the festivals! The film as in turned out was a very good first time documentary about the Agape school for orphans in South Africa. This also took a few years to shoot and began when the director was still in film school. Strawberry Fields was equally a very good and partly due to it’s strength of feeling very grassroots (at one point we see the director being asked not to hold the tripod like a rocket launcher as Apache helicopters fly nearby).

I realized that my bus was a 10:30pm and not 8pm as I originally thought so I figured I’d see one more film. My first choice was Julie Delpy’s debut. But it was sold out. So Instead I got one for The Serpent, a French Thriller in a similar vein to Tell No One. While sitting in the auditorium waiting for the film to start, I saw a man and woman walk in and around to the other side. The man looked strikingly like John Pilger, of whose writing and work I have admired for years. I was pretty sure it was him. After the film I waited till he was in the Foyer and asked if he was and indeed he was. He was on his way out with, I think, his wife so I didn’t want to hold him up. I just said I liked his work saw his doc the other day and that it was a pleasure to meet him. He didn’t say much, just a thank you.

If meeting 3 good first timer doc directors having done good work about Israel/Palestine wasn’t enough, I meet one of the mothers of hard core journalism who has consistently uncovered the political upheaval, documented wars and conflict around the world. He’s written articles, books and made documentaries. The man had been in war zones before I was even born. I didn’t expect him to say shit to me but I just wanted to say that it was a pleasure to have been in the same room as him! On par with meeting Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk and Arundhati Roy. I never though I would ever meet any of these people who educate, inspire and give so much hope.

When you’ve stood with greatness, it feels liberating and for a moment you feel as if you had a peek above the clouds, that you may be heading for greatness yourself as you tip toed at the bottom of their podium for a second.

What I believe Charlotte Cornic (made a short film about a Palestinian Refugee living in Glasgow), Hilla Medalia, Bara Heymann, Paul Taylor, John Pilger and myself have is the need to share what we know, what we saw, what we are discovering, to inform what is rare or non existent on the news or on TV. It’s great to have briefly met people who are like-minded. Taking Paul’s title of his film not just to mean us as film- makers, but all of us as a species; we are together.

- J