Tantura, Sundance’s opening night film, documents the war that broke out when the State of Israel was established in 1948. To Israelis, this is known as the War of Independence; to Palestinians, it is “Al Nakba” (the Catastrophe). In the late 1990s, graduate student Teddy Katz conducted research into a large-scale massacre that had allegedly occurred in the village of Tantura in 1948. His work later came under attack and his reputation was ruined, but 140 hours of audio testimonies remain. Director Alon Schwarz revisits these records to re-examine what happened in Tantura and explore why discussion of the Nakba is taboo in Israeli society. Interviews with former Israeli soldiers as well as Palestinian residents expose how power, silencing, and protected narratives sculpt history.

Screening followed by Q+A with director Alon Schwarz. Reception in the lobby following at 9pm.

History is archived by the victors. While searching in an Israeli archive, filmmaker Karnit Mandel stumbles across film reels from a long-lost Palestinian Liberation Organization record. This never-before-seen footage was seized by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon war, and Mandel begins to wonder what is so dangerous in it that requires hiding. As the truth of these historical records unravel, she comes into conflict with the bureaucracy of Israel’s defense apparatus, which denies the possession of additional footage. Will she be able to wrestle back any of this untold history, or will the reels forever remain buried?

Screening followed by Q+A with director Karnit Mandel. Moderated by Najla Said.

Co-presented by Americans for Peace Now.

Actress Dana Ivgy leads a cast of non-actors in this dramatic narrative. Nine women, Arab and Jewish, take part in a video workshop to learn how to document their lives, hosted by a young film director named Rona. As the women begin to film their lives and share the raw, homemade footage with the rest of the group, the group dynamic shifts, forcing each of them to challenge their views and beliefs as they get to know one another and themselves better.

Israel’s official submission for the Academy Awards. 

Screening followed by Q+A with director Orit Fouks Rotem, actress Dana Ivgy, and actress Joanna Said. Moderated by Annette Insdorf.

This film is not streaming virtually.

Drivers Hamouda and Ismail navigate the Israel-Palestine border and smuggle Palestinian workers from one world to the next so that they may simply provide for their families. Over the course of eight years, film cameras follow two men as they careen their cars through sandy dunes and across winding roads, evading Israeli soldiers who assume that any Palestinian heading for the border is a terrorist. An intimate yet harrowing portrait, The Devil’s Drivers is an immersion into life under occupation, documenting car chases and perilous trips in breathless suspense. 

Screening followed by Q+A with co-director Daniel Carsenty. Moderated by Matt Nosanchuk.

Co-presented by Encounter and the New York Jewish Agenda.

Segregated, highly surveilled, heavily filmed, and intensely guarded, H2 is the only Palestinian city with a Jewish settlement in it. Through rare archive footage and interviews with Hebron’s military commanders, H2: The Occupation Lab uncovers the ways in which a single neighborhood in Hebron fuels the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film tells the story of 54 years of military occupation and the place that is both a microcosm of the entire conflict and a test site for the methods of control Israel is implementing throughout the West Bank.

Screening followed by Q+A with co-director Noam Sheizaf. Moderated by Libby Lenkinski.

Co-presented by Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, JStreet, New Israel Fund, Partners for Progressive Israel and T’ruah.

This film is not streaming virtually.

For hundreds of years, a dynasty of Christian tattoo artists from the Old City of Jerusalem tattooed pilgrims with ancient olive wooden stencils.​​ The sole heir of this 500-year lineage, Wassim Razzouk, discovers an old book that implies not all the stencils belonging to his family were passed down to him. Wassim begins a quest to find them and retrieve as many as he can. His three-year search uncovers a major rift in his family from decades ago, revealing secrets, deceptions, thefts, and even an unsolved murder.

Screening followed by Q+A with director Orit Ofir Ronell. Moderated by Erica Shaps.

Co-presented by the InterAgency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues.

From 1948 onward, the Israeli military censorship examined soldiers’ letters under the guise of preventing the disclosure of military secrets. But unknown to soldiers was a secret apparatus which copied their letters and stored them. The purpose was to analyze the views of ordinary soldiers, and the findings were presented to high-ranking officials in a top secret report titled “The Soldier’s Opinion.”

A film by Assaf Banitt and Shay Hazkani.

Screening followed by Q+A with director Assaf Banitt, co-creator Shay Hazkani, and film subject Jeremy Dov (Dubi) Barcan. Moderated by Kobi Cohen.

Co-presented by Breaking the Silence and The Taub Center for Israeli Studies at NYU.