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The extraordinary story of a Palestinian village's resistance to encroaching Israeli settlements is brought to life powerfully, eloquently and personally, through the footage from Emad Burnat's five bullet-ridden and broken cameras.
It makes for an intensely powerful personal document about one village’s struggle against oppression. Like the people in his West Bank village, Emad’s five cameras have been shot at and smashed by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Over a five-year period he has filmed life in the village as a barrier is built across their farmland to separate them from the encroaching Israeli settlement. As Emad and his friends protest peacefully bullets and grenades rain down, but despite daily arrests and night raids, the villagers will not back down.
Cradling this chaos is the touching story of Emad’s new-born son, whose early years are defined by conflict. When, aged five, he asks his dad why the army killed a much-loved member of the community, the insanity of this oppression comes to haunt us. And when, fearing for his life, Emad’s wife pleads with him to stop filming we are bound to their troubled and joyful family life. Despite the seen-to-believed footage, this is an understated personal story told with great dignity.