Cinematheque Screening Response Jerusalem is Proud to Present by Nitzan Gilady Jerusalem is Proud to Present is an Israeli documentary by Nitzan Gilady about the 2006 World Pride Festival in Jerusalem. It does a good job at telling the story objectively by interviewing and following the lives of Israelis who were in favor and against the LGBT parade. Its main characters are members of the LGBT community and Rabbi Yehuda Levi, an orthodox rabbi that actively fights against the parade. I later learned during the Q&A part of the screening that the Rabbi was very pleased with the film even though the directors believes are clearly not in line with his. This just shows how successful the film was at depicting the characters as they see themselves. Something that Gilady admitted to being one of the biggest challenges in making documentaries. The documentary tracks the timeline of events leading up to the LGBT festival held in Jerusalem. This event created a lot of chaos and disagreement within Jerusalem because it is known to be “The Holy Land” and predominantly run by the ultra orthodox community. Hosting a pride parade in Jerusalem was seen as an act towards corrupting the city and its morals. The film gives us access to the lives of members of Open House, which is the organization that was in charge of planning the event. We are able to see how difficult their lives are made by the cities opposition to the event. Multiple members of the organization receive death threats, encounter assault, and were constantly being black mailed. The ultra orthodox community even organized an anti Pride Festival revolt, resulting in aggression throughout the city. After this particular event many members were scared and feared for the safety of their lives and the ones they loved. The film did a very good job at introducing the viewer to this fear and creating a connection to the characters by capturing their reactions and responses to these breakouts. Many scenes in the documentary took place in the Kneset (Israeli parliament) and showed how the representatives of the LGBT community were humiliated, laughed at, and not even allowed to speak when given the floor. The Mayer would even get up and leave the room whenever he would speak. It also tracked a woman from the right wing political party and her efforts to get signatures petitioning the dismissal of the parade. The film humanized the characters that were in favor of the parade by shooting in their homes and with their families. It gave the viewers an inside look into their lives and how much they had to suffer in order to express themselves. Contrasted to the scenes that depicted the opposition, which were usually in public areas or on the street. The documentary had a direct cinema style, by catching the most interesting things that happened but also tried to blend into the situation. Many shots were filmed from hidden spots or felt unstable and brusque. This camera usage reflected the context of the situation. Fore example one scene that demonstrates this is when one of the members of the right wing political party was speaking to another colleague about the situation and their intents to ban the parade. The women was making it seem as if they were very close to cancelling the parade, which naturally would make the viewer nervous and worried given how the film sets up the viewers expectations. The filming of this shot was shaky and the camera was placed between two columns as if the viewer were to be ease dropping on a very revealing conversation. The director also revealed to us that most of the times he did not have a camera crew behind him and was just shooting himself. He explained that this was due to how controversial the topic of the parade was and how dangerous it could be for him to be discovered filming the opposition. During the Q&A Gilady answered a lot of questions and spoke about his experience filming the documentary. When asked how he was able to get access to people from the opposition he explained that he used to be an actor and he had to grow his beard in order to blend in with the religious people of the city. He also talked about the situation in Jerusalem after the documentary was released and said that in 2010 the man who had stabbed one of the main characters in the film in a previous pride parade had been released from jail three weeks before another march and killed a 16 year old boy at the parade. The director also gave his advice on documentary making and said that it can get very unpredictable, and the story might develop into something else, he admitted that he had lost control of the plotline at one point but realized he had to allow the natural course of events to create the story. “I discovered when I was there, what this march meant for so many people that where being pushed aside and thinking they were the only ones in Jerusalem.”- Nitzan Gilady
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI am from Panama and a sophomore at Emory University. I am passionate about photography and media making. Archives |