By Áine O’Brien
We were pleased at Counterpoints Arts to have been invited by Picture House to host a Q&A with Guy Davidi, co-director of 5 Broken Cameras (2011). Specifically because this is a film made in the occupied territories of the West Bank, evoking an intractable history of forced displacement, collective memory and refugee stories.
5 Broken Cameras is co-directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. Burnat, a Palestinian farmer and intrepid cameraman from the village of Bil’in, and Davidi, an accomplished Israeli filmmaker and activist with a small ‘a’ (the latter reflective of his disarming modesty). We talked about the logistics of co-creation with Davidi – who’s eloquent on the nuances underlying creative collaboration and refreshingly honest on the thornier (predictable, if not stereotypical) question of what it means, in practice, to co-create across an Israeli/Palestinian divide.
Having picked up a slew of awards, from World Cinema Documentary Directing at Sundance, to Audience Award at Sheffield, the IDFA Special Jury and Audiences Award, and Best Documentary at Jerusalem Film Festival (a few on a long list), 5 Broken Cameras has clearly struck a chord with international audiences. It’s not hard to see why.
This is a film that pushes the boundaries of documentary storytelling, mixing visceral ‘reportage’ with creative voiceover and intelligent editing (thanks to veteran French editor, Veronique Laguarde-Segot and Davidi), allowing audiences, wherever, to engage with the ongoing drama of non-violent resistance enacted by the villagers of Bil’in.
To say that Bil’in has become a magnet for international activists isn’t an exaggeration. It is evident in repeated footage of courageous, non-violent actions and reflected in the evocative and beautifully paced voiceover performed by Burnat and scripted by Davidi. The struggle pivots on the building of the Israeli security wall, which violently cuts a swathe through village farmland confiscating tracts of precious olive groves and vital livlihoods.
The creeping incursion of Israeli settlements is powerfully rendered in shots juxtaposing agrarian landscapes against multistoried (brutalistic style) towers at varying stages of ‘construction’. Such contrasting scenes shape the architectural core of the film and are reminiscent of Gramsci’s classic opposition between a ‘war of position’ (imperceptible, small-scale methods of resistance) versus a ‘war of maneuvre’ ( large scale force imposed mainly by a military State apparatus). Yet 5 Broken Cameras does so much more than portray such stark opposition. The combination of ‘poetic’, ‘’observational’ and ‘performative’ modes of documentary (pace Nichols, 2001) result in a multifaceted yet heartbreaking portrait of a resilient community taking a gigantic stand against the irrational vestiges of State power.
Episodically structured around 5 chapters of Emad Burnat’s life and punctuated by meditations on his 5 ‘broken cameras’, the personal and the political are carefully interwoven. Emad says from the outset ‘the old wounds don’t have time to heal – new wounds will cover them up…so I film to hold onto the memories’. With that, we’re taken on an intimate journey marked by the birth of Emad’s youngest son, Gibreel, in 2005, coinciding with the purchase of his first camera. This subjective perspective meshes with Emad’s dogged and courageous documenting of the village protests against the wall and is spread over a five-year period, leading to 2010.
In choosing to choreograph connected layers of ‘witnessing’, the film encourages us to gently watch Emad as he observes Gibreel through his own camera; we empathise as he takes stock of his son’s masculinity being gradually shaped by the conflict. Some of Gibreel’s first words are: ‘Jidat’ (wall); ‘Matat’ (cartridge); and ‘Jesh (army). In turn, we observe Emad through images captured by scores of other cameras, revealing his tenacious (sometimes foolhardy, according to his wife, Soraya) filming of the protests. The film plays subtle homage to the Israeli and non-Israeli activists who have steadfastly documented the resistance against the security wall – contributing 200 hours to the 700 hours shot by Emad over the five years.
Emad explains in his melancholic somewhat deadpan voice: ‘when something happens in my village …my first instinct is to film it’ and ‘when I film, I feel like the camera protects me but this is an illusion’. And of course it is an illusion. For the camera does not protect Emad. What it does do is record the ‘reality’ of the protests, the sheer repetition, the creative counter strategies conjured up by protestors facing aggressive tactics by army and settlers to confiscate village farmland. A simple shot of burning olive trees provides dramatic allegory for this violation of the land and its occupants.
5 Broken Cameras steadfastly avoids one-dimensional depictions of the political act of ‘witnessing’ and an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ agenda. The co-creation between Burnat and Davidi is borne of mutual recognition of differences, what sociologist Richard Sennet calls the careful craft of ‘skillful cooperation [through] learning to listen well and discuss rather than debate’. ‘Skillful cooperation’ is poignantly evoked at film’s end via Emad’s voiceover scripted by Davidi: ‘Healing is a challenge in life…it’s a victim’s sole obligation…by healing you resist oppression…but when I’m hurt over and over again I forget the wounds that rule my life …For often wounds cannot be healed…so I film to heal.’
One Stop Doc at Counterpoints Arts is looking forward to exploring the production history of 5 Broken Cameras in collaboration with Picture House, in a dedicated workshop with Guy Davidi (early December). We’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, go see this film – as one-word tweets from Empire and Mark Cousins on the Picture House flyer put it: ‘Remarkable’ and ‘Amazing’.
