Film Forum

Film Forum’s annual Free Movie Week, presented with generous support from The Ostrovsky Family Fund

Tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis, day of show only, when the box office opens at noon (10 am on Saturday and Sunday). There is no advance ticketing for this film.

“Build that wall!” Israel did just that: a 435-mile long, $4 billion “separation fence,” that divides Israel from the Palestinians, in an attempt to reduce terrorism. The wall is the subject of British playwright David Hare’s eponymous play (performed in NYC at the Public Theater), here given new life through Cam Christiansen’s inventive animation. Hare confronts the brute reality of the structure: four times as long as the Berlin Wall, it required the confiscation of 4000 acres of Palestinian land and the destruction of 1000 trees. Brilliant Israeli novelist David Grossman (To the End of the Land) opines that “after 1967, we became addicted to occupation…a victim of the situation. We hand over our fate to security people…trapped in this paradox. We live to survive only, while historically it was the reverse. We survived to live.” 

Presented in association with The Other Israel Film Festival

Presented with support from the Joan S. Constantiner Fund for Jewish and Holocaust Films; The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund; The Richard Brick, Geri Ashur, and Sara Bershtel Fund for Social Justice Documentaries

CANADA   2017   83 MINS.   IN ENGLISH   NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA

Reviews

“A fascinating study of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. A compelling animated documentary (by) Cam Christiansen and playwright-screenwriter David Hare… (who) has lots of interesting things to say. The wall has trapped the land in an inescapable paradox. The only saving grace… is the colorful graffiti that has appeared mostly on the Palestinian side of the barrier. Christiansen makes those drawings come to life in a powerful display of creative wish fulfillment. It’s the triumph of art over an otherwise unbearable reality.”
– Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
 
“An engrossing discussion of a problem that was supposed to be a solution.”
– Chris Knight, National Post (Canada)