Last year at the Traverse City Film Festival (organized by Michael Moore), most of the documentaries were, to no surprise, about the war in Iraq. This year, however, I was pleasantly surprised that there was a wide range of diversity in the documentary line-up. More importantly, I was pleased that the documentaries I saw did what I think documentaries are supposed to do: They educated me on issues I was not familiar with in an entertaining way, without throwing a lot of propaganda in my face.
It might be difficult to find some of these films in theaters if you don’t live in a major city, but catch them if you can, or save them in your queue over at Netflix for when they come out on DVD.
While the movie is funny–as it shows that the excuses women make for cheating on their diets are the same in every culture–it is also sad because a year after the meetings end, the women did not keep in touch with each other, and their opinions about the future of peace in the Middle East really haven’t changed.
This movie also did a great job of revealing to me just how much I do not know or understand about the complex history of the West Bank, and it was worth seeing the movie for that reason alone.
This movie holds both Israeli greed and Palestinian corruption accountability for the plight of these men, and once again, this documentary doesn’t hold out much hope for progress in Middle East relations. (However, the film won an award at the Jerusalem Film Festival, so does that mean something?)
This documentary also resonates with a certain universality that these conditions are what happens in many countries with borders between the haves and have-nots.
Some students eventually can’t stomach the election process, and it makes you wonder why we in America still do.
And if you’d like to read more about what films won awards at the Traverse City Film Festival, go here.
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