Detained (Asurot)

Written by: Ada Ushpiz, Anat Even
Directed by: Anat Even, Ada Ushpiz
Producer: Anat Even
Executive Producer: Dan Setton (SET Productions)
Sponsored by: Soros Documentary Fund - OSI; Noga Communications - Israel's 8th Channel, Makor Fund for Israeli Films

When: 2 pm Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Where: HCC Ybor Room

Where: Noon Sunday, March 21, 2204
Where: HCC Ybor Performing Arts Theater

Najwa, Nawal and Siham, three Palestinian widows, live with their 11 children in a house on Shuhada Street in Hebron. Their house lies on the border; the facade is under Israeli occupation, the Palestinian authority controls the back.

At the entrance to the house a military post, on the roof the Israeli army has placed a watch point over Palestinian Hebron.

Three women, trapped in the middle, constantly surrounded by Israeli soldiers, carry on their difficult lives in a perverse situation: the occupation becomes a routine, the absurd becomes a given. This is the story of an occupation that extends to the staircase and the roof of the house, where it encounters poverty, loneliness, pain, but also the small joys of everyday life.

This is an internal prison, the external one is the ongoing occupation.

Statement by directors Anat Even and Ada Ushpiz:

"As Israeli Women directors, tired of the cumulative effects of oppression in the occupied territories in our own society, we wished to present the arbitrariness of the occupation as seen via the barred windows of an occupied house, in order to show the thin line between a smile and a gun shot. The intimacy and affection that developed between us and Najwa, Nawal and Siham during the course of our year of filming enabled us to present them in their full humanity, as real women, far from the stereotypical image of Palestinian women held by our society"...

Prizes:

The Golden Dove Leipzig International Film Festival, Germany, 2001

Best Film Award Leipzig International Film Festival, Germany, 2001

Honorable Mention The Jerusalem International Film Festival (Wolgin Award Competition), 2001

The Audience Award Vesoul Asian International Film Festival, France, 2002

Special Mention Lisbon International Documentary Film Festival, Portugal, 2002