The Wanted 18 | |
---|---|
Directed by | |
Produced by |
|
Cinematography | Daniel Villeneuve, Germán Gutierrez |
Music by | Benoit Charest |
Distributed by | National Film Board of Canada |
Release date |
|
Running time | 75 minutes |
Countries | Palestine, Canada, France |
Languages | Arabic, English, Hebrew |
The Wanted 18 is a 2014 Palestinian-Canadian animated documentary about the efforts of Palestinians in Beit Sahour to start a small local dairy industry during the First Intifada, hiding a herd of 18 dairy cows from Israeli security forces when the dairy collective was deemed a threat to Israel's national security. The film combines documentary interviews with those involved in the events, archival footage, drawings, black-and-white stop-motion animation as well as re-enactments, and was co-directed by Canadian filmmaker Paul Cowan and Palestinian visual artist and director Amer Shomali. [1] The film was the Palestinian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards but was not nominated. [2] [3]
In the 1980s, as part of a Palestinian boycott of Israeli taxation and commodities, residents of Beit Sahour decided to form a collective and stop purchasing milk from Israeli companies, in a quest for greater self-sufficiency. They purchased cows from a sympathetic kibbutznik and set about teaching themselves how to care for the animals and milk them—even sending a member to the United States to learn dairy farming. The farm was a success, with strong local demand for “Intifada milk.” [1] [4] [5] [6] Despite the fact that the cows posed no serious economic threat to Israel, they were determined to be part of the boycott of Israeli administration, and hundreds of soldiers as well as military helicopters were used to search for the cows. The popularity of the cows increased support for the tax boycott, causing headaches for occupying forces. [7]
The film is framed as being told from the point of view of the cows—Rikva, Ruth, Lola and Goldie, who appear in humorous Claymation animated sequences. [4] [6] The filmmakers intended The Wanted 18 to have a comic book feel, even shooting live-action interviews at an angle to replicate the look of comic book panels. [5] The director intended to use the cows point-of-view as a way for audience to sympathize with the subject matter. For Shomali, laughter is a way of non-violent disobedience. [8]
The idea for the film began in Shomali's boyhood, spent largely at a Syrian refugee camp where his main escape had been reading comic books, one of which dealt with the story of the Beit Sahour cows. Montreal-based producer Ina Fichman first heard of the story when a group of producers and broadcasters at a documentary-pitch event Ramallah. Shomali's original intention had been to make a short animated film on the story. However, Fichman believed it had the makings of a feature documentary and approached veteran Montreal-based documentary filmmaker Paul Cowan. The project took nearly five years to complete—a lengthy process due to the time involved in creating the animation as well as the fact that Shomali and his Canadian collaborators lived thousands of miles apart. [5]
Interviewed in the film are Jalal Oumsieh, a schoolteacher who had purchased the 18 cows, geology professor Jad Ishad, pharmacist Elias Rishmawi and butcher Virginia Saad. The film also interviews two members of the Israeli government: Shaltiel Lavie, then-military governor of the region, and Ehud Zrahiya, his Arab affairs adviser. [6]
The film score is composed by Benoît Charest. The Wanted 18 is a co-production of Intuitive Pictures, the National Film Board of Canada, Bellota Films, Dar Films Productions, ARTE and 2M (see credits-end of documentary). The producers are Fichman and Nathalie Cloutier. [1] The film received funding from the Beirut-based Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC). [9] and from SANAD, Abu Dhabi film festival.
The film had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and was screened to a capacity crowd in Ramallah. [1] Other festival screenings as of the fall of 2014 include the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, where the film received the award for Best Documentary from the Arab World, [10] the Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal, [5] as well as the 2014 Carthage Film Festival, where the film received its Golden tanit for best documentary film. In 2015, it won Traverse City Film Festival Best Documentary award.[ citation needed ]
The film's director Amer Shomali was unable to attend a screening of the film at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York City when he was denied entry to Jerusalem by the Israeli government on the grounds that he was a security threat, and was therefore unable to attain a U.S. Visa. [11]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 69% based on 13 reviews, with an average rating of 5.86/10. [12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [13]
Award | Year | Category | Result | Ref(s). |
---|---|---|---|---|
Abu Dhabi Film Festival | 2014 | Best Documentary from the Arab World | Won | [14] |
Black Pearl Award for Best Documentary Feature | Nominated | |||
Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival | 2015 | Al Jazeera Documentary Channel Award for Long Film | Won | [15] |
Carthage Film Festival | 2014 | Tanit d'Or for Documentary Feature Film | Won | [16] |
International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights | 2015 | Special Mention of the Jury for Creative Documentary | Won | [17] |
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival | 2014 | Best North American Independent Film | Nominated | [18] |
Traverse City Film Festival | 2015 | Founders Prize for Best Documentary | Won | [19] |
Tanzim is a militant faction of the Palestinian Fatah movement.
Tamer Nafar is a Palestinian rapper, actor, screenwriter and social activist of Israeli citizenship. He is the leader and a founding member of DAM, the first Palestinian hip hop group.
Beit Sahour or Beit Sahur is a Palestinian town east of Bethlehem, in the Bethlehem Governorate of the State of Palestine. The city is under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority. The population was of 13,281 in 2017, consisting of approximately 80% Christians and 20% Muslims.
Har Homa, officially Homat Shmuel, is an Israeli settlement in southern East Jerusalem, near the Palestinian city of Beit Sahour. The settlement is also referred to as "Jabal Abu Ghneim", which is the Arabic name of the hill. One purpose given for the decision approving of its establishment was to obstruct the growth of the nearby Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
Arab cinema or Arabic cinema refers to the film industry of the Arab world. Most productions are from the Egyptian cinema. Currently, the Middle East's largest cinema chain is Vox, owned by UAE-based Majid Al Futtaim Cinemas.
Cinema of Palestine refers to films made in Palestine and/or by Palestinian filmmakers. Palestinian films are not exclusively produced in Arabic and some are produced in English and French.
Qustandi Shomali (Arabic: قسطندي شوملي, is a Palestinian professor of history at Bethlehem University.
Shalom Abu Bassem is a documentary by Nissim Mossek about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that follows a New York City Jewish settler and an Arab hummus vendor that are forced to live as neighbors in the heart of Jerusalem. The documentary spans a nearly 20-year period, beginning before the First Intifada, to demonstrate how the nation's politics affect their neighborly relations. The film won Best Editing at the Haifa International Film Festival.
Annemarie Jacir is a Palestinian filmmaker, writer, and producer.
Michel Khleifi, born in 1950 in Nazareth, is a Palestinian (48-Palestinian) film writer, director and producer, presently based in Belgium.
The Abu Dhabi Film Festival, formerly the Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF), was an international film festival held in the city of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates from 2007 to 2015.
The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising is a coalition of the local Palestinian leadership. During the First Intifada it played an important role in mobilizing grassroots support for the uprising. In 1987, the Intifada caught the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) by surprise, the leadership abroad could only indirectly influence the events. A new local leadership emerged, the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU), comprising many leading Palestinian factions. The disturbances, initially spontaneous, soon came under local leadership from groups and organizations loyal to the PLO that operated within the West Bank and Gaza Strip; Fatah, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front and the Palestine Communist Party. The UNLU was the focus of the social cohesion that sustained the persistent disturbances. After King Hussein of Jordan proclaimed the administrative and legal separation of the West Bank from Jordan in 1988, the UNLU organised to fill the political vacuum.
Paul Cowan is a Canadian filmmaker who spent the bulk of his career with the National Film Board of Canada.
Hisham Zreiq, also spelled Zrake, is a Palestinian-Israeli Independent filmmaker, poet, animator and visual artist. He began working in computer art in 1994, and in 1996 started exhibiting his work in galleries and museums. In 2007 he filmed his first documentary, The Sons of Eilaboun, and in 2008 he created the short film Just Another Day, dealing with the life of Arabs living in western world after the September 11 terror attacks. He uses his poetry and visual art in his films, as in Just Another Day, and was a member of the Culture Unplugged film festival panel. In 2018 Zreiq contributed to the book An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba by writing a chapter based on the interviews from his documentary The Sons of Eilaboun. In 2023 he started a music project called 'Goddess Asherah'
Teta, Alf Marra is an Arabic language documentary film about a feisty Beiruti grandmother.
Mahmoud Kaabour is a filmmaker, writer, and public speaker from Beirut.
Scandar Copti is an Arab Israeli director, screenwriter, actor, and producer. He is known for examining social problems of Arab society in Israel through his film works.
Amer Shomali is a Palestinian interdisciplinary visual artist who uses conceptual art, painting, digital media, films and comics to explore Palestinian sociopolitical issues and revolution iconography.
Azza El Hassan, born April 21, 1971, in Amman, Jordan is a Palestinian documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, producer and writer. Her documentary films mostly reflect her experience living in exile and her experience living in Palestine. One of her best known works is Zaman al-akhbar (2001).
Beer in Palestine is manufactured by Palestinian microbreweries – most traditionally Taybeh Brewery, established in 1994, and Birzeit Brewery, since 2015. Several beer festivals are held annually in Palestine, including an Oktoberfest-style event hosted by the Taybeh Brewery.