Radar: Five Broken Cameras, FACT

There is more to a cinema trip this week than the tired machinations of James Bond. This Thursday, an equally long-running conflict is shown in all its bloody horror...

If you’ve not seen this piercing and powerful documentary, we strongly suggest you head over to FACT this Thursday. Shot over five years, the film documents a village and its fight against illegal Jewish settlers on the West Bank. It was a struggle (or, more correctly, it is a struggle) that involved assaults and atrocities, and casual arson inflicted on Palestinian olive groves by illegal Jewish settlers. And of five cameras smashed during filming.

It’s the villagers’ bad luck that their meagre scraps of land are in the way of Israeli authorities sent in to create that sickening steel and concrete wall. Emad, the villager who took it upon himself to record the events, is repeatedly arrested, threatened with physical harm and told his home is now a ‘military zone’: forbidding him to film his daily struggle to survive.

It’s a film with a heart too, as the footage is pieced together with the help of Jewish filmmaker Guy Davidi, reflects moments of hope and minor triumph that underpin the determined spirit of the villagers.

There’s a live panel discussion following the film, hosted by Liverpool Amnesty International.

5 Broken Cameras
FACT
8 November