63 minutes / Color
Release: 2015
Copyright: 2005
The core of this haunting meditation on war, land, the Bible, and filmmaking is a portrait of Revital Ohayon, an Israeli filmmaker and mother killed near the West Bank. Director Lynne Sachs creates a film on the violence of the Middle East by exchanging letters with an Israeli friend. Together, they reveal Revital's story through her films, news reports, and interviews, culminating in heartbreaking footage of children discussing the violence they've witnessed. Without taking sides or casting blame, the film becomes a cine-essay on fear and filmmaking, tragedy and transformation, violence and the land of Israel/Palestine.
"3 Stars! Presents a mature, artistic meditation on Middle East violence."—Video Librarian
"Parallels the layers of history of the Middle East - demonstrating the possibilities as well as limitations of bridging the gap between Palestinians and Israelis engaging the politics of conflict."—Dr. Jeffrey Shandler, Department of Jewish Studies, Rutgers University
"Both humanist reverie and implicit cautionary tale."—The Village Voice
"Surprisingly beautiful, like the embattled countryside it depicts. War, creativity, beauty—it's a depressingly frequent concatenation, but Sachs makes it sing without glorifying death."—The Jewish Week
"Sachs can turn simple ingredients into poetic imagery. [Her] new featurette features more than one instance of this talent. Mixing found footage and her own crisp digital imagery with great success, Sachs' sensitivity towards Ohayon—with whom she identifies—results in the kind of layered story you won't find in any newspaper."—San Francisco Bay Guardian
Listed in Top 10 Documentaries of 2005 at Senses of Cinema!
Select Accolades
An intimate look at the Catonsville Nine who on May 17, 1968 walked into a Catonsville, Maryland draft board office, grabbed hundreds of selective service records and incinerated them with homemade napalm.
Lynne Sachs | 2001 | 45 minutes | Color | English
A portrait of a doctor who saw the worst of society and ran.
Lynne Sachs | 2015 | 37 minutes | Color | English
Profiles Reverend L.O. Taylor, a Baptist minister and inspired photographer / filmmaker who documented the fabric of black American life prior to the civil rights movement.
Lynne Sachs | 2004 | 29 minutes | Color | English
When two American sisters travel north from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, conversations with Vietnamese strangers and friends reveal to them the flip side of a shared history.
Lynne Sachs | 2015 | 33 minutes | Color
