Type: Documentary Director: Mohamed Bakri Year: 2002 Time: 54 minutes Produced by: Iyad Samudi and Mohamed Bakri Written by: Mohamed Bakri Edited by: Leandro Pantanella Language: Arabic with English subtitles
Winner: Best Film, Carthage International Film Festival
'Where is God,' an elderly man desperately wonders when surveying the debris in the Palestinian refugee camp Jenin.
The film, directed and co-produced by Palestinian actor and director Mohammed Bakri, includes testimony from Jenin residents after the Israeli army's Defensive Wall operation, during which the city and camp were the scenes of fierce fighting. The operation ended with Jenin flattened and scores of Palestinians dead. Palestinians as well as numerous human rights groups accused Israel of committing war crimes in the April 2002 attack on the refugee camp. "Jenin Jenin" shows the extent to which the prolonged oppression and terror has affected the state of mind of the Palestinian inhabitants of Jenin.
Bitterness and grief are the prevailing feelings among the majority of the population. Many have lost loved ones or are still searching for victims and furniture among the debris. A little girl, who does not seem to be much older than twelve, tells her story but knows no fear. The ongoing violence in her day-to-day life only nourishes her feelings of hatred and the urge to take revenge. She tells what she would do to Prime Minister Sharon if he visited the camp and she shouts that the Palestinians will never give up the struggle. They will keep on producing children, who can continue the fight against injustice.
The sad question forces itself on the spectator. What will become of a country, a people when its children are confronted with war and violence from a very early age?
Banned in Israel, "Jenin Jenin" is dedicated to Iyad Samudi, the producer of the film, who returned home to Yamun after the shooting of the film was completed. On June 23, as Israeli forces besieged Yamun, Samudi was shot and killed as he was leaving a military-closed area with three friends.
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<http://www.arabfilm.com/item/242/> -- Yoshie
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