Bates Hillel to screen 'Between the Lines' as part of 2004 Maine Jewish Film Festival

Between the Lines, a 2001 award-winning documentary film by Yifat Kedar about Amira Hass, the only Israeli journalist living in the Occupied Territories, will be screened as part of the 2004 Maine Jewish Film Festival at 7 p.m. Sunday, March 14, in the Keck Classroom (G52) of Pettengill Hall. A facilitated discussion with the filmmaker will follow the 58-minute screening (in Hebrew and Arabic, with English subtitles), and the public is invited to attend free of charge.

Interested in reporting the truth, the Jerusalem-born Hass writes for the daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, from her home in Ramallah, 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Filmmaker Yifat Kedar documents the dangerous and often lonely life of this courageous woman.

Hass is the only child of a mother who survived the Holocaust and is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the Territories since 1991. Originally produced for Israeli television, the film follows her for two years, beginning in 1999, when there was a period of optimism and euphoria in Israel. The worsening political situation affects her daily life as well as the lives of those she covers. Tanks pass her apartment and bombing disturbs her sleep, but she stays to live among the Palestinians and to report from the inside.

“Even if you don’t agree with her, it is hard not to admire the courage of this solitary, brave, and tenacious woman who attempts to share her perspective about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict under dangerous and difficult conditions,” writes Sheera LaBelle in a review essay for the 2004 Maine Jewish Film Festival program.