[Portadown] Film Screening: On the Side of the Road + Q&A with Director Lia Tarachanksy (IPSC)

armagh | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Tuesday August 18, 2015 13:38 by IPSC - IPSC

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign is proud to host a premiere screening of the award-winning ‘On the Side of the Road’ by Israeli director Lia Tarachansky on Saturday 5th September 2015, at 3.30pm in the Drumcree Community Centre, Ashgrove Road, Portadown.

FREE ENTRY but spaces are limited, so please come early to avoid disappointment.

The film is a challenging and important documentary about the creation of the Israeli state and the impact this has had both on Palestinians and Israelis. The film will be followed by a discussion between the audience and the director who is touring the film around Ireland.

About the film

Canadian-Israeli journalist Lia Tarachansky's first documentary feature film is exploration of the power of denial. The film focuses on Israeli collective denial of the events of 1948 that led to the state's foundation on the back of ethnic cleansing and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. It follows war veterans Tikva Honig-Parnass and Amnon Noiman as they tackle their denial of their actions in the war. The film also tells the story of the director, Lia Tarachansky, an Israeli born in the Soviet Union who grew up in a settlement in the West Bank and who as an adult began to realize the problems of the Israeli Occupation for the Palestinians. The film was shot over the course of five years.

Runtime: 82 mins. Hebrew, Arabic & English (with English Subtitles). 2013. Naretiv Productions. Directed by Lia Tarachansky.

Directors note: Out of respect for the 2005 Palestinian Civil Society Call to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israeli institutions, this film is entirely independently funded​​ . It has not received any support from any institution, official fund, or governmental body based in Israel. ​​​​

Reviews

"Interesting and impressive ... Asking questions about the Nakba is the biggest taboo in Israeli Jewish society ... Tarachansky manages to show an upsetting reality without dehumanizing the people she interviews" - The Daily Beast

"[The film] confronts the reality of 1948, it examines how Israelis deal with that past today — how it is taught to the young; how the facts about it are available; how those facts are sometimes deliberately ignored. Tarachansky has broken this taboo." - Electronic Intifada

"Feisty, uncompromising ... [Tarachansky] is Israel’s Snowden, disclosing to her people and the world, not classified documents, but living words of truth that unmask Israel’s manufactured myths, delusional innocence and vicious cycle of violence" - Dr. Vacy Vlazna

"Shot from the point of view of 'return'... Having been a Zionist settler, Tarachansky empathizes with Israeli Jews. Instead of condemning them, she examines and tries to understand her personal transformation, and that of other Israelis who are seeking to escape from embedded but false assumptions ... This capacity for critical thought and self-examination is what enables Tarachansky to show so convincingly how and why the Zionists have locked themselves in a prison of their own making." - Counterpunch

"A remarkable and important documentary about the birth of Israel and its impact on Palestinians." - Refugee Media Project

About the Director

Lia Tarachansky is the Palestine-Israel correspondent for The Real News Network (TRNN) where she produces short, documentary-style reports exploring the context behind the news. In 2012 Tarachansky produced and co-directed a BBC-Arabic documentary about Israel's Social Justice (J14) movement and the wave of self-immolations it sparked, in protest of the harsh economic reality many face in Israel. Her work is frequently featured in publications such as +972 Magazine, Mondoweiss, USA Today, Al Jazeera, and the Huffington Post; and her journalism was profiled in the renowned Max Blumenthal book, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. Her website is here.

Organised by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign in association with The Progressive Film Club.

Caption: Trailer