5 BROKEN CAMERAS

Directed by: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi

Running time: 90 minutes

A Palestinian peasant and an Israeli director teams up to tell a story about Israeli occupation? For most people who thinks that the conflict is as easy as black and white, this is revealing. But for those who read news carefully and watch as many films and documentary about the conflict they can make an opinion that not all Israeli citizen approving the occupation and this is not a religious conflict.

Nominated for Best Documentary in this year's Academy Awards and coincidentally racing with another documentary, The Gatekeepers, a documentary about Shin Bet's role in Israel's defense, this one is quite horrifying.

Just like the title itself, this documentary was made by 5 broken cameras. Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat bought his first camera in 2005 to record his youngest son, Jibril. But living in Bil'in, a village in the West Bank is not easy. Israeli settlements took their land and the villagers fought back peacefully. They demonstrated against the illegal settlement and Emad record all of the demonstration with his cameras which is broken by the Israeli soldiers, by a bullet.

The Israeli soldiers respond with brutal force, they do not hesitate to use live bullets that killed some of the villagers. The settlers burn their olive trees and most of the demonstration does not ended peacefully. In one scene Israeli soldiers arresting children which is crazy, why would soldiers arresting children? These are the people that defend their own land but yet they were treated just like animals.

Burnat's document the confrontation up close and personal, he himself even got arrested and as time goes by (it spans over six years since 2005), his camera starts to consume his life. The raw material gives a close look on how common people in Palestine must face occupation and how children are used to face violence in front their very own eyes.

No matter how violent the Israeli soldiers are, the villagers does not break in spirit, they keep fighting and resisting.

Rooted in everyday reality, I think Israelis should watch this and see how their own soldiers 'behave' and perhaps ponder about the occupation. As for other people not related to the conflict directly, they can see the awful truth about occupation.

Told completely from Emad's point of view, it is not just the resistance being filmed but Emad's daily life too, including how the adorable Jibril grow up from a baby into a child that began to understood things around him. Should this one win in the Oscar, I think it will increase people's awareness that occupation still happen in the 21st century.