NEW YORK -- Before Guy Davidi co-directed and produced 5 Broken Cameras, he was involved in Indymedia and an experienced filmmaker. He was also associated with Anarchists Against the Wall, Israeli anti-occupation activists. This is how he came to know the West Bank village of Bil'in, home of the film's co-director, Emad Burnat. "I lived in the village for two months in 2005," he recalled, during a conversation that took place at a coffee shop in New York, where he was promoting the film ahead of the Oscars. "That was an intense time, with the [Palestinian Legislative Council] election. That…

And, the Oscar for weirdest item of the day goes to... the group of soldiers who call for charging the makers of '5 Broken Cameras' with incitement! The Israeli website Mako reports that the group, known as "Consensus - Guardian of the IDF Spirit," has posted the following Youtube clip as part of a campaign against the makers of the movie (my subtitles).   Mako reports: "The movie Five Broken Cameras is indeed a nominee in the category for best documentary, but it seems it should be in the category for best propoganda film. The film lacks any objectivity, and…

Both Oscar-nominated documentaries from this region are important documents of Israeli occupation and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in their own right. But if 'The Gatekeepers' wins, it will whitewash occupation by presenting Israeli guilt in a redeeming light. If 'Five Broken Cameras' wins, it will go beyond the message that what Israel is doing is wrong and show the world exactly what wrong looks like – and just how ugly it is.   The Gatekeepers and 5 Broken Cameras have already succeeded in breaking one of Israel’s biggest taboos: airing out its dirty laundry on the big screen, for the whole world to see. Now…

By the time the documentary Five Broken Cameras came out in November 2011, the Palestinian village of Bil'in in the occupied West Bank had already become the symbol of Palestinian non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation, Israeli settlements and the separation wall/barrier. It had already celebrated six long years of weekly Friday demonstrations led by the residents, joined by Israeli and international activists and aggressively repressed by the IDF; it had already seen several of its residents killed after being shot by IDF soldiers during these demonstrations (among them, Bassam Abu Rahme and his sister, Jawaher Abu Rahmah); and succeeded in pressuring the government to alter…