Beyond the Classroom presents the Academy Award-nominated documentary "5 BROKEN CAMERAS" - Monday, October 5th

Beyond the Classroom presents the 2012 Academy Award-nominated documentary

“5 BROKEN CAMERAS”

Monday, October 5, 7:00-9:00 pm

South Campus Commons Building 1, Room 1102

(http://www.beyondtheclassroom.umd.edu/locationbtc.htm)

An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the film was assembled by Burnat and Israeli co-director Guy Davidi. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat’s cameras, the filmmakers’ collaboration follows one family’s evolution over five years of village turmoil. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost. “I feel like the camera protects me,” he says, “but it’s an illusion.”

 

• Nominated for 2012 Academy Award, Best Documentary Feature

• 2012 Sundance Film Festival, World Cinema Directing Award, Documentary

• "Burnat narrates this telling and hard-hitting documentary which shows concretely the unrelenting attack on the rights, the dignity, and the land of the Palestinian people... As we watch the large numbers of Israeli soldiers with their superior firepower and brutal tactics (using rubber coated bullets and tear gas), we see what Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., meant when they said that nonviolence takes more courage and inner strength than most believe..." — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Practice.

• "An essential work both on filmmaking and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras provides a birdsong of perseverance in the face of irrational violence, immense historical anger, and grim, seemingly insurmountable realities." – Chris Cabin, Slant Magazine

• "Gripping from the get go...a powerful act of witnessing. To see it is to wonder what it would have been like to have a black Alabaman's 8mm documentation of the civil rights struggle." – J. Hoberman, Artinfo

• "Displays both distinction and the emergence of a significant talent. Presents vivid witness to the power of the image to help with healing." – George Robinson, The Jewish Week

 

This Seminar Series on “Ensuring a World Fit for Children?” is available for academic credit (UNIV399C, 1-3 credits)

 

For details, go to: https://www.facebook.com/events/1656323194644389/