Avi Mograbi’s new movie, “The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation,” has not been among the offerings at any of the film festivals held in Israel this year, and so far no Israeli television channel has been willing to air it either. Nor did the nonprofit foundations that usually support documentary films want to get involved this time around, even though Mograbi is a highly-regarded longtime filmmaker whose previous films have been very successful and have been shown at dozens of film festivals around the world.
Mograbi’s newest film has also begun making the rounds at international film festivals and earned an honorable mention at the Berlin Film Festival. But Mograbi wasn’t all that surprised by the string of rejections that the film has been met with in Israel. “Either it’s an awful film or there’s something there that people don’t want to deal with. On the other hand, it’s a huge success abroad.”
Were you given any explanation for the rejections in Israel?
“No. And I’m also not one of those types that would go and investigate. I knew that this film would raise problems.” One reason, he surmises, is that the movie is based on soldiers’ testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence, the Israeli anti-occupation organization founded by army veterans. The group collects testimony of alleged abuses by the
— source Jews For Justice For Palestinians | Shany Littman | Oct 6, 2021