Route 181 - Fragments d'un voyage en Palestine-Israël
Eyal Sivan & Michel Khleifi
France, Belgium, Germany | 2003 | 272 min
Languages : Arabic, Hebrew
Subtitle : English
In the summer of 2002, Eyal Sivan and his friend and fellow filmmaker Palestinian Michel Khleifi embarked on a long journey together. Their aim was to travel along the borders outlined in Resolution 181, which was adopted by the United Nations in 1947 and divided Palestine in two States. On their trip across their country, they have to face all the contradictions of a land that once was a whole.
In the summer of 2002, Eyal Sivan and his friend and fellow Palestinian filmmaker Michel Khleifi embarked on a long journey together. They aim to travel along the borders outlined in the Resolution 181, which was adopted by the United Nations in 1947 and divided Palestine in two states. On their trip through their country, they have to face all the contradictions of a land that once was a whole. Now frontiers, checkpoints, barbed wire, concrete, soldiers are part of the landscape and a reminder that a ferocious political struggle is going on. The division’s well reflected in the stories of the people they meet. Sadness, disappointment, suspicion, but also humour and cynicism and after all a feeling that something has been lost. Sivan and Khleifi try to build a counter-narrative that mirrors all the complexities they have to face and denies the official versions of the government. Incredibly enough, the film had to face the absurd accusations that it might encourage anti-Semitic acts. Therefore, its screening in 2004 at Cinéma du Réel in Paris got cancelled. Shot during the Second Intifada, known as Intifadat El-Aksa.
