Crossing Boundaries

Checkpoints defy all rationality, power is assigned arbitrarily. Time - at checkpoints, at military outposts and in refugee camps - is long and drawn out, and becomes endless waiting. External boundaries remain rigid, inner boundaries fall. Three films and a talk with Yoav Shamir, director of the inventive documentary "Checkpoint".

17h

Road

Short film by Nadav Lapid , Israel 2004, 17 min, English subtitles

In the Judean Desert, on an narrow winding road, a young couple is making love beside a memorial pilliar. Only a year before, on that very same road, four palestinian workers kidnapped their Israeli employer and placed him on trial, charging him with the injustices of zionism and the crimes of occupatiion. As the trial moves on, the contractor and his workers near their tragic end, along with the surrounding desert mountains, who can no longer bare the endless conflict, helplessly crashing in front of the camera.

Checkpoint

Documentary by Yoav Shamir , Israel 2003, 80 min, English subtitles

Special rules apply at the checkpoints: Israeli soldiers in their teens have to execute senseless orders; their victims are subjected to absurd forms of harassment as they pass the roadblocks - time passes unbearably slowly. The camera records moments that are sometimes trivial and sometimes charged with tension. It observes day in, day out, by rain, mud and snow, events as they unfold at the roadblocks. Intimidation and compassion alternate in a strangely arbitrary manner.

19h

Waiting

Feature film by Rashid Masharawi , France/Palestine 2005, 90 min, English subtitles

Ahmad, a film director, accepts one last commission before he leaves Palestine. He has to select an actor for a National Theatre (which has yet to be built) in Palestine. Without an ounce of enthusiasm, he sets off for the refugee camps in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. His encounters with promising talents are correspondingly fatal.