Holy Land

If you are on a college campus where there is heated debate about the Palestine-Israel conflict, you are the prime audience for this film.

I made Holy Land to engage people on ALL sides of the issue. BDS activists. Mainstream Hillel. And the cynical or apathetic. It's a film that doesn't preach or condemn -- my hope is that it can offer a common point of reference for people who are so divided, so opposed, that even sitting in the same room may seem untenable. I suggest joining together to watch the film!

Holy Land is about NOW, about daily struggles, and not another debate about history, a debate that to me seems endless and impossible to resolve. I'm Jewish -- I'm not religious, but care deeply about my Jewish identity -- but I made this film with no partisan support or affiliation of any kind. Unaffiliated doesn't mean objective -- I would never claim that I or any other filmmaker could acheive objectivity.

What I can claim is that I've remained totally independent, arrived with no agenda, and spent two years living with and befriending people in the West Bank on all sides of the issue. I chose to depict characters who I believe to be in some way heroic -- those who have a spirit that drives them to do great things, things out of the ordinary. Even if their acts and beliefs often clash, it's in that spirit that I choose to find hope.



So I look forward to hearing from students who challenge my nonpartisanship, my neutrality, my self-procralimed capacity to cover both side of the story. I'm also happy to hear from anyone who thinks I succeeded in making even-handed film about this toxically radioactive issue.



The film isn't about who is right and wrong. It's about why we should give a damn.