You can download the Full cover set for the DVD and inlays by clicking the image.
You can download this page in .DOC format by clicking HERE.
You can download the Full cover set for the DVD and inlays by clicking the image.
You can download this page in .DOC format by clicking HERE.
Film Title: Return to Palestine
Language: English (some short interviews in Arabic with English subtitles)
Run Time: There are two versions –1hr 40 min – full length plus two extra features.
1 hour - abridged version for public meetings etc.
Offensive Language: mild, infrequent.
Sex/Nudity: none.
Violence: some moderate injury.
Other: Real images of conflict.
Technical Information: Colour. Aspect ratio 4:3. Stereo sound.
Region: The disks are recorded as Region 0 (zero) suitable for all world regions.
Formats: PAL for UK/Europe/Middle East and NTSC for North America/Japan versions are available.
Audience: Those interested in Peace work, Fairtrade products, and Palestine/Middle East issues.
Trailer: There is a trailer 1 min 13 sec in length.
Filmed: November 2006
Released: September 2007
RETURN TO PALESTINE documents a three-week trip by a group of UK peace activists to help with the olive harvest in Palestine, in autumn 2006. The trip was organised by Zaytoun, the ethical cooperative that imports Palestinian olive oil into the UK (ffi www.zaytoun.org see “Harvest” button)
Short summary: The film captures life in a small rural town in the West Bank. The group experience the wonderful hospitality of the Palestinians, but also witness the pressure of ethnic-cleansing by the Israeli Occupation. It shows the encircling security fences & road-gates, and the wonton theft of agricultural land. The group experienced an army raid in the middle of the night – damaging houses & traumatising families and young children. Activist footage captures the horror and brutality of the Israeli army's program of house demolitions in the area. Throughout the West Bank and in the cities of Bethlehem & Jerusalem, the film shows social dislocation and disastrous effects on employment and health-care caused by the building of the Wall. It also shows some of the many internal checkpoints controlling daily movement, and the extreme level of militarism in Israeli society necessary to maintain the Occupation, which is now in its fortieth year.
The film is divided into six parts:-
1) Documents the group staying in the small rural town of Marda, in the Salfit region, to provide protection during the olive harvest. It shows the generosity and hospitality of the local people. But it also shows the injustices being suffered by these people. The Mayor relates how the town has lost half its land to the nearby settlement and other developments. The town is now surrounded by security fences and the only access road can be closed and locked-up by a military gate. The group intercedes with the army to access farmland cut off behind the recently constructed Wall, but this is denied. The group interview young men who have been beaten or arrested by the army. They document windows and doors damaged by the soldiers and witness the army setting off a sound-grenade in the middle of the night. They also meet families who had been subjected to distressing army raids, men, women, the elderly, and young children dragged out of their houses at gunpoint in the middle of the night. Their conclusion is these incidents can best be explained by a plan by the Israelis to slowly ethnically-cleanse and erase the town.
2) The film tours the area around Marda, showing how the new settlements and the Israeli Wall have stolen large tracts of land deep inside the West Bank. It shows farm land and entire towns cut off in enclaves which are controlled by checkpoints. The film visits a house, with the family still living in it, buried inside the security fence and blocked off from its neighbours by a specially constructed length of 25 foot high concrete Wall. This section concludes with dramatic footage by Human Rights observers (credit www.IWPS-Pal.org) of several brutal house demolitions in a nearby town.
3) Documents a visit to a nearby town where the team stayed for the olive harvest the previous year. The economic crisis caused by the international sanctions against the Palestinian Government has had its effect at a local level here. The town’s only facility, the Youth Club & Dabka Dance Group, has been forced to close. The farmers are experiencing increasing harassment from nearby settlers who attack them and discharge sewage into their fields, killing their fruit trees. It goes on to show how even a simple journey in the West Bank involves problems and delays of passing through the numerous internal Israeli checkpoints. It shows how cars & pedestrians are stopped at gunpoint and people are body-searched. An interview with human-rights observers (www.machsomwatch.org) reveals that enlightened Israeli opinion is sceptical about the colossal cost and tenuous justification for this repression. A chance conversation with a taxi-driver tells the story of yet another random killing of a Palestinian at the checkpoint.
4) Follows a journey down into Israel itself and shows the extreme levels of militarisation necessary to maintain the occupation. It also gives a historical summary showing how the present day injustice is inexorably linked to British history in the region.
5) Chronicles a trip around Jerusalem, visiting the suburbs cut off behind the Wall. It witnesses an elderly man being refused access through the Wall to attend a hospital appointment. It shows places where the Wall brutally cuts across the main road that used to link the suburbs with Jerusalem and an interview with a local community organiser describes the devastating impact on education and employment in the area. It goes on to show a hair-raising journey through the Valley of Fire; the only road for Palestinians linking the north and south parts of the West Bank. This shows the problems of even a simple trip, to visit Bethlehem to see a children’s show. The film shows how Bethlehem has been cut off by the Wall around the north of the city, and now by a string of settlements around the south. Finally it shows the harsh conditions people must endure passing through the main checkpoint to Jerusalem.
6) The final part wonders why so many tourists visiting Jerusalem don’t notice the Wall, which snakes ostentatiously along the hilltops. It shows dramatic footage of a confrontational settler demonstration through East Jerusalem. The film concludes with an appeal for more people to get involved with campaigning groups to publicise the injustices highlighted in this film.
A selection of pictures are available under the “Gallery” button
on the website www.BristolComputers4Palestine.co.uk
The Trailer can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W3kYeDSDZE
This is the second eye-witness documentary film by Ed Hill.
The previous film, OUR SUFFERINGS IN THIS LAND, filmed during a similar visit in autumn 2005,
has received widespread UK and international recognition:-
1) The film was "DVD of the Month" in Palestine (see www.thisweekinpalestine.com May 2007 issue.)
2) Has distributors in Jerusalem and North America
3) Stocked by every branch of the Bristol Library service
4) Shown during festivals and at many public events in the UK and internationally
5) Broadcast on national UK television - the Islam Channel (September 2007).
6) A Short 5 minute interview with Ed Hill together with clips from both films is
available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKp9x88gr9A
The films are made to spread information about the injustice happening in Palestine and sold to raise funds for a project to ship donated & recycled computers to Palestine for educational & community use.
FFI see www.BristolComputers4Palestine.co.uk
September 2007