Occupation 101 - Documentary

Tonight I attended the documentary called "Occupation 101"

I first knew about this even from facebook, كتاب وجهك على قولة بعض الناس

I didn't think much of it, it was intresting but I wasn't sure that I want to attend, didn't join the group & didn't take action. Yesterday as I was checking around the q80 blogs I found a post about it in EXzombie's blog, so I said why not? especially that I missed the First Kuwaiti Short Film Festival, that I did want to attend. So after reading about the Documentary "Occupation 101" I decided to go, my sister canceled on the last minute so I went alone.

In beit lothan I got a little lost, but with some help I managed to find the right way to the Cinemagic Kuwait's event: screening of the documentary "Occupation 101". The best thing is that its done in my favorite day of the week Tuesday :D kidding more is on the way ;p

Regardless of my opinion of what went on here in Kuwait back in 1990 & the way a lot of Palestine's people "they of all people in the world know how it is to have your country stolen & they too of all people know how much Kuwait stood by them" act to the Iraqi invasion on Kuwait, I do sympathize with their cause. Losing a country, identity and living in a prison called home is not easy.

The documentary illustrates how powerful the media propaganda can be, how influential more than 40 VITOS can be! the number of times the USA used the Vito right they hold in the UN regarding Israeli violation of international law.

Information wise, I did gain a lot from this movie & the way they illustrated the information, including numbers or percentages was very interesting, to the extent that I did not feel bored at any time in this movie! And it is hard to keep me posted I get bored easily....

The movie started right at the heart of the current events, then moved up to the history of when the Jews were first placed there, I like placed more than immigrated :) and went on with the events/ facts up till date.

Palestine as a country held the diversity of having the 3 heavenly religions man knows, and is a holy land for the three of them! Muslims, Jews & Christians used to live side by side there, what changed over the years & made Muslims/ Arabs be criminals? Other than power, money there is media. In the movie you see the real view of different people in Israel & Jews, in or out of Israel, who one of them claimed this whole mess to be the hand craft of Zionism! saying that back in the day as his grandma told him Muslim Arabs & Jews used to live side by side. Also showed a lot peace wanting organizations in Israel, one of them was the The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, which fully shows an other side of Israeli people, a silent one I should add. All in all the movie shows the plain truth, what the media eye can not see nor most of the people "in the west especially" can see, since they use the media eye to see things in the middle east, in Palestine to be more spacific.

The movie is an award winning one & definitely is worth seeing, my view of the cinematic side is as follows:

The story was smooth, things were not too quick too slow, the best thing about it is that it showed us the familiar present situation that we can relate to then switched to the roots of the issue....

The jump from, an interview of an activist in any field, facts, numbers and real people was done VERY well, to the extent that I was hooked up all the time, I didn't find time to think of anything else, as I sometimes do in movies :D

The music, sound, and editing was great! The three most touching scenes for me were (1) The Palestinian kid that kept talking in a very enthusiastic way about how mad she is with all the demolition happening around them & how they are living (2) The American kid giving people a speech about kids in the Middle East, Palestine to be more pacific are just like them, normal humans with normal needs (3) the wall that Israel had built....

Last but not least, it was interesting to see the amount of money being sent to Israel from the USA and how well armed Israel is.

All in all I liked the movie and appreciate truth more & more. The only bad thing is that I did not chose a good seat! And smoking was allowed, I HATE smoking! although its an open area but still I can not cope with smoking, I didn't want to hurt the smoker's feelings but then again my lungs on one hand their feelings on the other?! I bared with it, but next time I will stay away from smokers! Now that I know that they can smoke in this event.