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Aug. 25, 2006
Finding peace together
Filmmaking project links teens across divide.
ELIZABETH SHEFRIN
In the midst of the latest round of conflict seen by Israel, 10
of its young people, along with 10 Palestinian and nine Canadian
teens, gathered on Galiano Island to hash out their differences
and engage in creative collaboration.
The Peace it Together initiative was organized by the Creative Peace
Network - a multicultural, interfaith group of peace activists -
to help foster greater understanding between youngsters from the
Middle East. A previous Peace it Together camp was held in Vancouver
in 2004. This year, organizers decided to have participants make
short films together at the Gulf Islands Film and Television School
(GIFTS). The films were screened Aug. 20 for a sold-out crowd at
the Stanley Theatre. The two-week program also featured dialogue
workshops and outdoor activities.
Vancouver resident Sol Kauffman is 16 and a student of King David
High School. He said it was his interest in film that led him to
the GIFTS website, where he found information about the Peace it
Together program.
"I was interested in politics, so I decided to apply,"
he said in a phone interview from Galiano. Kauffman explained that
the campers were divided into groups of four to make the movies.
Each group included at least one Palestinian, one Israeli and one
Canadian.
Filmmaking was not the only education happening at the camp.
"I've heard from several people," Kauffman recalled, "that
the Israelis recognize that their army hasn't always been doing
things that are right, and that the Palestinians recognize that
extremists like suicide bombers are not helpful to the Middle East."
Maya Sharon, also 16, is Israeli and comes from Neve Ilan. "I
participated in a Jewish-Arab program at home and heard about this,"
she said. "At first, I thought it would be nice and, after,
I started to think how important it is."
Sharon said that at first, "the dialogue was kind of hard.
Each person wanted to tell their side. But now it's fine because
we got to know each other." She planned to tell her friends
about the Palestinian perspective when she returned home, "because
most of them don't know it."
Haneen Abulideh is from the Palestinian town of Ramallah. She heard
about the project through a forum called Palestinian Youth Forum
for Co-operation. Like her peers, she spoke with confidence about
her time on Galiano.
"Everything has been fun," she said. "Dialogue has
been great, doing the filmmaking.... Dialogue is better than I thought.
There's a sense of freedom. We got taught listening skills, so that
when we started the dialogue, it wasn't really hard to express ourselves
and hear each others' opinions."
But for Abulideh, the experience was not without its challenges.
"It's hard to talk about all the pain and look beyond it for
a solution," she said. "It's hard to let go."
The seven films screened at the Stanley demonstrated a depth of
feeling (sometimes laced with humor) that society doesn't always
credit to people in their teens.
The evening began with an animated piece called These are My
Peelings, in which two onions, surrounded by images of war,
struggle for victory. Abulideh, one of the directors, explained
after the film, "We wanted to express how the Israelis and
Palestinians look at the conflict – both sides think, 'It's
not me, it's you.' We chose an onion to represent the multiple layers."
Other films included No Place for Dreamers, which dealt with
an ill-fated romance between an Israeli and a Palestinian, and On
the Line, which portrayed a friendship between a Palestinian
and an Israeli teenager in Canada that later unravelled as they
found themselves on opposite sides of the Israeli/Palestinian border.
All of the teens spoke at the end of the evening about their commitment
to furthering understanding, peace and dialogue. They would, they
said, be taking their experiences – and their films –
out into the world.
Sima Elizabeth Shefrin is a Vancouver artist and writer.
She has illustrated a picture book, Abby's Birds, which will
be published by Tradewind Books in October.
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