“ We as artists have the responsibility to be loyal to reality , and to the time and place where things happen . Art is always political , and I have to speak about a specific conflict [ that still represents ] the socioeconomic reality where these girls live ,” says Shavit , who is Israeli and lives in Berlin .
Seeing the story of the El-Amur girls in Women of Refaiya was not the first time I had heard of the water crises in Palestinian territories . However , it was the first time I heard it from an Israeli point of view . I am Jewish myself , with a Mexican-Polish father and Peruvian-Turkish mother . Growing up with Israeli family members and friends , I had never been exposed to an alternative view of the conflict until college when I moved in with one of my closest friends whose mother is Palestinian .
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This story , of not only the El-Amur girls ’ relationship with water , but countless other Palestinian families , goes widely unheard or is eclipsed by the larger looming Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
I was shocked to see the response of some of my Israeli friends and family when I asked them about the Palestinians ’ situation . Their response was to deem the Palestinians as “ terrorists ” and declare that we needed to keep our people safe .
It is this kind of mistrust , misunderstanding , and division that fueled a film like Women
Water Project . Using water as an indirect way of speaking about the larger conflict , the project ’ s goal was to bring light to this issue by bringing together Israeli film students from Tel Aviv University with Palestinian filmmakers who wouldn ’ t otherwise have the ability to collaborate .
“ The lack of information is very dangerous , for if you do not know what is really happening , there is no way to identify with reality . Israelis think Palestinians are terrorists and vice versa ,” says Yael Perlov , Producer and Artistic Director of the Water Project . “ But to see them together and find a common language [ through film ], you see how [ communication ] can suddenly be very easy .”
The project lasted twelve months , and resulted in a series of nine evocative fiction and nonfiction films capturing a range of experiences — from the daily life of a
water truck driver in the West Bank to
two Israeli couples sharing a cool water spring with a group of Palestinians working in Israel to an
Arab woman who cleans a wealthy home with a swimming pool .
Like Shavit ’ s Women of Refaiya , the activism of the overall project was in the filmmaking process itself . It was in the exchange among students , filmmakers , and the communities they were working in , rather than in the final outcome , which proved to be a mixture of both success and complication .
Women of Refaiya screened at several
festivals
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