Film Forum

Excavating long-unseen footage from the vaults of the Swedish public TV network (SVT), archival wizard Göran Hugo Olsson (THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967–1975) probes 30 years of history in Israel and Palestine. Recognizing there is no definitive chronicle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Olsson focuses on showing how this history was told by SVT, including war reportage (the 1967 Six Day and 1973 Yom Kippur Wars), human interest stories, and interviews with political leaders (Yasser Arafat, David Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Anwar Sadat) and intellectuals (Ghassan Kanafani, Raymonda Tawil, Amos Oz). Everyday life in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank is presented dispassionately by Swedish journalists, who provide a useful (if sometimes compromised) vantage point on this continuing conflict.

2024     221 MIN. (including a 15-minute intermission)     SWEDEN / FINLAND / DENMARK     
ICARUS FILMS     IN ENGLISH, SWEDISH, HEBREW & ARABIC WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Reviews

CRITIC’S PICK. “AN EXCELLENT DOCUMENTARY... This sprawling, continually engrossing assemblage from Göran Hugo Olsson (THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE) is built entirely from material shown on Swedish public television. Its subject is not only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also how the news was mediated for Swedish viewers by a dominant broadcaster with a mandate for impartiality... The film offers both a detailed historical account and a running critique of that account.”
– Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times
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“Invaluable. [An] illuminating, even-handed magnum opus... Exhaustive in its detail and balanced in its spread of voices... Earns its running time with the exceptionally high quality of the reporting and the sober eye that it casts over the region.”
– Wendy Ide, Screen