The Heart of Jenin

Maybe I like watching documentaries better than feature films. Perhaps it's that "real-life" aspect that gets to me. The fact that I might be able to try to relate it to something in my life, and if not my life, then the world around me.
I'd never heard of this story before and I admit that I don't know very much about the conflict in this part of the world, but luckily that didn't hinder my ability to appreciate the film. It sort of left me wanting to know more about what's going on and the progress of the situation (if you can say that there's any progress), but growing up in Canada and being the way I am, sometimes I find it hard to understand why things haven't changed.
Here's a little write-up about the film from the TIFF08 website. It sells the film completely short and doesn't highlight the best parts of the film, but regardless:

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After such a long conflict between Israel and Palestine, it takes an extraordinary story to jolt us out of accepting the status quo. The Heart of Jenin tells such a story. In November 2005, Ahmed Khatib, a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy, was playing with a plastic gun in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank when an Israeli soldier, mistaking the toy for a weapon, shot and killed him. Despite his grief, the boy's father Ismael consented to donate his son's organs to several Israeli children. Thanks to this act of humanity, four of those children, each from a different part of Israeli society, are alive today.

The Heart of Jenin explores the legacy of Ismael's decision during the two years following his son's death. We meet three of the young recipients of Ahmed's organs: Samah, a Druze girl in northern Israel, near the border of Lebanon; Mohammad, a Bedouin boy in the Negev desert; and Menuha, an Orthodox Jewish girl in Jerusalem. At the centre of the story is the compelling figure of Ismael Khatib. Having lived his whole life under occupation, he joined the resistance during the first Intifada and spent time in an Israeli prison. He later gave up fighting to focus on his family, but has lost two businesses to the conflict. The existing Israeli checkpoints make it difficult to visit his cousin, who lives only ten minutes away.

Directors Leon Geller and Marcus Vetter bring diverse backgrounds to the project. Geller lives in Israel, while Vetter is based in Germany, and has an unusual background that he explored in the autobiographical documentary My Father the Turk. With great sensitivity, they explore the complexities and the sorrow that persist on each side of the wall dividing Israel and the West Bank. In spite of all these troubles and the death of his son, Ismael maintains a willingness to seek peace through his own means. His journey is a triumph of the heart.

Thom Powers
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The two directors, Leon Geller and Marcus Vetter were in attendance and held a Q&A session about the film and stressed the fact that the movie was not about the conflict in the area and not even the effect of one man's decision, but the journey of that man to meet the different children. The directors also said that it was the uncle of Ahmed Khatib who was the force behind many of these connections. That the father just wanted to meet the recipients themselves and didn't really care much about meeting the families. The uncle pushed to meet to whole families and actually, the father did not want to meet the Jewish family at all (this was the one moment of the film which surprised me as up until this point, there was no inclination that the father viewed different cultures/religions differently).
The tension at this meeting was incredible.
Two of the recipients wanted to remain anonymous right from the beginning of the event, so they obviously did not want to be a part of the movie. The directors of the film were lucky enough to have been following this story right from the beginning although they did borrow some footage from local news channels. They mentioned that they were just watching events unfold and had no part in making the connections. For logistical purposes, they needed to have two film crews...one on each side. Sigh.
The movie is beautiful. You can really feel the emotion coming from the characters (part of the reason why I was so surprised when the directors said the father wasn't interested in the one meeting). The tenderness between characters. There were many shots which prove that the eyes are windows into the soul. In spite of these moments, it's surprising to hear some of the sentiments expressed by the characters as to us, it just seems so backwards.
All I know is that I cannot judge, for I do not really know.
This documentary is beautiful story in the middle of an incomprehensible reality (at least, to me).

- picture courtesy of www.tiff08.ca