ReCoCo: Life Under Representational Regimes

Events in the framework of the exhibition on Thursday, May 12:

5 pm: Curatorial tour with Siri Peyer und and Joshua Simon
6 pm: film screening
Ariella Azoulay, The Food Chain (2000, 17 min.)
Ariella Azoulay, I Also Dwell Among Your Own People: Conversations With Azmi Bisha (2006, 50 min.)

The Food Chain, (2002) 17 min

“In 2002, I began working on a short film – The Food Chain – dealing with the question: is there or isn’t there hunger in Palestine? The figures in the reports of several humanitarian organizations and statements by various officials seemed rather ambivalent to me. I assumed that there is hunger in Palestine and that outdated conceptual categories – which identify hunger with the swollen bellies of children, as in the case of Biafra – have prevented us from seeing the situation in the Occupied Territories as it truly is.
I conducted additional interviews with military officers, soldiers and policy-makers. All declared themselves to be fulfilling a humanitarian function. Gradually the picture became clearer. The spread of humanitarian speech to the networks of the military and the government was part of the exacerbation of conditions in the Occupied Territories. One arm strikes the blow, while the other arm provides assistance. This is the current phase of the Occupation - the Palestinians are constantly kept “on the verge of catastrophe”. Those who contend there is no hunger in Palestine are absolutely correct. There is no hunger in Palestine, nor will there be. The mechanisms of assistance, which provide food to the hurting Palestinian population, counter-balance the fatal blow to the sources of food and accessibility to it.” (Ariella Azoulay)

Written and directed by: Ariella Azoulay / Camera: Miki Kratsman / Editing: Eliav Lilti / Music: Sharon Ben Ezer
Chorus: Ellie Armon, Noa Barak, Sharon Ben Ezer, Noam Ben Yosef, Talia Bernstein, Anat Biltski, Lior Brosh, Adi Chalfin, Rama Deuelle Luski, Irit Feigis, Sima Gutman, Noa Morag, Hagar Ophir, Liat Savin, May Zidni
This film was produced for the Hunger Project (Editor: Naomi Aviv, Producer: Amit Goren)

I Also Dwell Among Your Own People: Conversations with Azmi Bishara (2005), 50 min

Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian intellectual, a leading Arab politician and a former member of the Israeli Parliament. The film presents three aspects of Bishara’s distinction and “otherness”: the intellectual quality of his political program; his challenge not only to the Zionist ideology but also to the particular role it has assigned to the “Israeli Arab;” and the modernist, humanist, and civic aspects of his political vision, which are so outstanding on a background of nationalistic atmosphere and an emerging apartheid regime in Israel.

Written and directed by: Ariella Azoulay / Camera: Miki Kratsman / Editing: Eliav Lilty / Producer: Arik Bernstein, Alma films