Voices Across the Divide

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Budget

Raised to date: $30,210.00
Estimate to complete: $63,725.00
Total Estimated Budget: $93,935.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 06/03/2010

Status

Post Production

Media Type

Video

Project End Use

Other: Educational tool

Key Personnel

Alice Rothchild
Co-Director
Alice Rothchild is a physician, activist, and author of "Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience", Pluto Press 2007, revised edition 2010. Alice is co-founder and co-chair of American Jews for a Just Peace-Boston and has organized health and human rights delegations to Israel and Palestine since 2003, lecturing widely, and writing numerous articles. Please see her website for further details www.alicerothchild.com

Sharon Mullally
Co-Director/Editor
Sharon Mullally is an Emmy Award winning independent producer/director and editor and co-founder of extendedPLAY Inc. http://extendedPLAY.org. Her work appears regularly on local and national public television. Sharon spent ten years in staff positions at broadcast television stations in Philadelphia and Baltimore and for the past fifteen years, Sharon has primarily produced media that focuses on social justice. Sharon has served as board member and workshop instructor for Philadelphia Independent Film/Video Association and instructor/facilitator at Scribe Video Center. Her editorial work has appeared in the SILVERDOCS Film Festival, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, the DoubleTake Documentary Festival, and the Philadelphia Festival of Independents.

Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)

"Voices Across the Divide" is geared towards a broad range of audiences; university students, faith communities, social justice organizations, and the general public. While the language of the documentary is in English, the topic appeals to Jewish and Arab audiences and will be offered to independent Jewish and Palestinian film festivals in the US and Canada, public television, cable television, and independent theaters. Several festivals considered for presentation include Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Boston Jewish and Arab Film Festivals, United Nations Associations Film Festival, and SILVERDOCS Film Festival.

The documentary is also appropriate for university distribution. I am specifically involved with departments through Harvard, Brandeis, Yale and Al Quds University, as well as University of Chicago, Utah, and London School of Economics, among others.

My most strategic audiences are those in the Jewish and Christian communities who are agonized over the course of events in Israel/Palestine and willing to struggle with alternative narratives and long held preconceptions about Arabs. I have connections through a variety of religious organizations including the I.L. Peretz Workmen's Circle, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and Community Church of Boston. In addition, I will promote the film through social justice organizations such as Jewish Voices for Peace and American Jews for a Just Peace.

Funders

Name	Amount	Date
Sylvia and Seymour Rothchild 2004 Charitable Family Foundation	$12,000.00	03/01/2010
Individual Donors	$18,210.00

Location

312 Rices Mill Rd
Wyncote, PA, 19095

See Google Maps

Short Synopsis

Powerful family stories shed a new light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by examining history through the eyes of Palestinians and the heart of a Jew. This film explores the commonalities of trauma, yearning, immigration, and the harsh realities of injustice and dispossession.

Description/Treatment

The feature length film "Voices Across the Divide" is a collection of personal recollections and a vivid oral history of the Israel/Palestine conflict as seen through the eyes of Palestinians and the heart of a Jew. Using interviews with Palestinian survivors of the 1948 and 1967 Nakbas, the film personalizes the historical narrative for those unfamiliar or hostile to the complexities of the conflict. This intimate storytelling begins with my journey as a Jew born in 1948 to first generation parents, growing up with Israel as my friend, my pride, and ultimately my heartbreak. As I developed as an activist and a student of modern European and Middle Eastern history, one of the most painful, and perhaps hopeful themes that emerged for me was the commonality of experiences and language that I heard and still hear in the voices of the survivors of the Holocaust and the victims of the Nakbas. Immersed in the stories of the Nazi Holocaust, I began to understand that buried in the wounds of my own people's near annihilation, another people's story was lost. Paraphrasing the words of Edward Said, if a culture does not tell it's narrative, it ceases to exist, it experiences cultural genocide. Jews have learned that lesson well.

After years of research, I explored interviews with Palestinians from Ann Arbor to Boston, asked to tell me their Nakba stories. The act of the Palestinian telling and the Jew listening depicts a sharing of consciousness, humanity, and reconciliation on a most personal level. These interviews, combined with historical footage, maps, and original music composed by Jewish and Palestinian musicians create powerful visual images and emotional experiences. Exploring these stories, the film confronts commonalities of trauma, yearning, immigration, and realities of injustice and dispossession, humanizing this tortured and misunderstood history. Perhaps, an essential part of Jewish history and a just resolution to this tortured conflict requires understanding Palestinian as well as Jewish suffering. Listening to the voices of the other is the first step in this painful and healing journey.

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