Directors: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi
Starring: Emad Burnat and the people of Bil’in
Release Date: 19th October 2012
Palestinian cameraman Emad Burnat’s five cameras observed the West Bank village of Bil’in’s resistance to Israeli encroachment and the building of a separation barrier over five years and it is here presented in documentary form. Through a voice-over during a scene of night raids by Israeli authorities, Burnat admits that filming gave him a feeling of distance from the conflict. Yet neither he nor the audience that his footage has found with the help of Israeli film-maker Guy Davidi can be separated from the problems by a lens or screen as the discourse, or lack of, associated with the act of viewing is questioned.
Few grand pronouncements are made about Israeli-Palestinian relations and politics are brought to a human level. The subtitled translation of Burnat’s voice-over grates with clumsy poetics at points and often detracts from the grainy visual’s impact, but 5 Broken Cameras nevertheless finds and delivers a unique sense of the stark dailiness of Bil’in’s struggle when international audiences speak largely in terms of nations and religions.
