Encounter Point
Encyclopedia
Encounter Point is an award-winning film directed by Ronit Avni
Ronit Avni
Ronit Avni is a Canadian/Israeli/ recent American. Ronit Avni is an award-winning filmmaker, human rights advocate and media strategist with an expertise in Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution efforts. Ms...

 and Julia Bacha
Julia bacha
Julia Bacha is a Brazilian documentary filmmaker.-Background:Bacha was born in 1980 in in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil...

. It depicts different families that have been affected by the violence in Israel between Israelis and Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

s. In this film, Just Vision
Just Vision
Just Vision is a nonprofit non-partisan and religiously unaffiliated peace organization based in Washington and Jerusalem that informs Israeli, Palestinian and international audiences about under-documented joint civilian efforts between the Israelis and the Palestinians to resolve the conflict...

, a non-profit organization, follows these families for 16 months. It begins this journey by documenting the ongoing troubles between the Israelis and Palestinians. The team conducted 475 preliminary interviews and did two years of research before embarking on this 16 month journey. The crew traveled throughout Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, from Tel Mond
Tel Mond
Tel Mond is a town in the Israeli Sharon region, located east of Netanya and north of Kfar Sava.-History:Tel Mond was founded in 1929 by Sir Alfred Moritz Mond, later known as Lord Melchett, a former British minister and president of the British Zionist Federation...

, Tulkarem, Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...

, and Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...

. These parents and loved ones have been attempting to end the violence by joining, or beginning their own peace organizations and awareness campaigns.

Plot

One mother that is introduced early on in the film is Robi Damelin.http://www.justvision.org/profile/robi_damelin.php Damelin’s son David was a soldier in the Israeli army that had been shot by a sniper while working at a checkpoint. The soldiers had been sent to protect an Israeli settlement on Palestinian territory. After learning of her son's loss, Damelin joined the Bereaved Families Forum
The Parents Circle-Families Forum
The Parents Circle-Families Forum is a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members due to the conflict...

, where she was able to meet other Palestinian and Israeli families that had been through the same losses. There she worked closely with the families from different backgrounds and began to advocate peace between the two territories. She continues to work for an end to the conflict.

Ali Abu Awwad is another individual in the film who is followed by the production team to see his stance on the non-violence attempts. After being shot in his lower body by an Israeli settler he was sent to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment. While healing in Saudi Arabia, Ali’s brother Yusef had been murdered by an Israeli militant. After the news of his brother's murder Ali Abu Awwad teamed up with the Bereaved Families Forum
The Parents Circle-Families Forum
The Parents Circle-Families Forum is a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members due to the conflict...

 to work with Israelis and Palestinians who together campaigned for non-violence. By speaking with Palestinian militants and those who are threatened by Israeli settlers Ali was able to broaden his message of non-violence resistance throughout the Palestinian territories.

Shlomo Zagman, who grew up in an Israeli settlement most of his life is another intriguing character in the documentary Encounter Point. Along with the settlers from his home town, Shlomo, and by and large all Israeli settlers, are extremists that believe that all the Palestinians should be deported to the neighboring Arab countries (Israeli Settlement)
Israeli settlement
An Israeli settlement is a Jewish civilian community built on land that was captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered occupied territory by the international community. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank...

. The movie illuminates this point as we see how Shlomo and his wife transform, despite the meandering resistance of his parents and home town, to become founding members of the Realistic Religious Zionism group http://www.tzionut.org/index.asp.This transformation is a huge step, and usually unheard of, for someone who grew up in the settlements. Subsequently, Shlomo tries to encourage the people of his hometown, as well as other settlements, to withdraw from these occupied territories and convince them that the persistence of these settlements will bring down the entire Jewish State of Israel. Encounter point follows this former Israeli settler who risks his life and public standing sequentially to promote a peaceful end to this clash.

George then joined the Bereaved Families Forum, 3 months after her death, like many of the others in the film. There he met Israelis and Palestinians who had gone through the same losses and were ready to fight for peace on top of their pain. In an interview George has said that he received an apology from the soldiers that had begun the shooting. In the same interview he is quoted as saying “We also call for peace that is just and real where there will be no Palestinian or Israeli family that has to go through the same thing we did. Our goal now is to try as much as we can through our love and forgiveness to carry on with our lives and help others not to go through what we went through.” http://www.justvision.org/interview/george_saadeh.php#a006572 George was a principle of a high school in Bethlehem, but after the shooting he became the deputy mayor of Jerusalem.

Crew

  • Ronit Avni (Producer, Director)
  • Nahanni Rous (Producer)
  • Julia Bacha (Co-Director, Writer, Editor)
  • Joline Makhlouf (Producer).

Making of the Film

Ronit Avnihttp://www.encounterpoint.com/filmmakers/index.php?PHPSESSID=c621410286075aa65809631bf460b601 (Encounter Point director) and Julia Bachahttp://www.encounterpoint.com/filmmakers/julia.php (Encounter Point co-director) worked together to make this film. Avni founded a non for profit organization that helps to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians called Just Vision. She has worked with other human rights organizations in other countries as well. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

. She was on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005.
Bacha, who is originally from Brazil, co-wrote and edited the famous Control Room, which was a movie about the coverage of the Iraq war, on the television channels of Al Jazeera. Bacha came to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 from Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 in 1998 to study Middle Eastern History at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. She later graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Awards and Acknowledgments

Encounter Point has won various awards in several countries.

External links

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