by Brad Balfour

G21 Staff Writer

To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Russian, instead of English, copy and paste the complete URL ("http://www.g21.net/midE5.htm") and enter it in the box after you click through.

New York, NEW YORK, USA - Throughout a fateful month marked by some of the most intense violence between the Israelis and Palestinians, two film festivals happening simultaneously -- the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the 18th Israel Film Festival 2002 -- suggested an alternative to this acrimony.

As Elie Wiesel received a lifetime achievement award at the opening of the Israel Fest, bombs were exploding in major Israeli cities. Coincidentally, the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival began its series at Lincoln Center, saluting the international struggle against poverty, oppression and injustice with "The Navigators," a film by Kenneth Loach. Protests were being lodged for the seeming pro-Palestinian slant of the films made about the Middle East.

But it actually seemed that -- with both series -- the selected films sought to humanize as much as possible. Some leached more ideology than others but there was an overpowering sense of dialogue.

Showing at the Human Rights Fest was "Afghanistan Year 1380," a look by directors Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Alberto Vendemmiati into an NGO-run Afghani hospital. And at the Israeli festival there was "Trumpet in the Wadi" by Lina and Slava Chaplin, about an outsider Russian Jewish immigrant romancing a Christian Palestinian woman with inadvertently tragic results. Straddling both festivals was "Ramleh," Michal Aviad's film about ultraorthodox Jewish and Arabic women living side by side in a small town.

With the festivals in play at the same time, some cynics noted an oversight in the programming (in particular with the Human Rights Fest). Where were the pro-fundamentalist films or pro-expulsionist films in eitherădid that mean the programmers were biased? Is it a festival's responsibility to be totally balanced? Of course not.

Director Rachel Leah Jones cited a reaction after her screening last week as an example of the exchange she hopes to forge through her film "500 Dunam on the Moon," about a former Arab village turned into an Israeli artists' colony. "A man came up to me and clearly disagreed with my point of view [that the land was unfairly appropriated]. But after an initial exchange, neither of us was dismissive of the other. We came to agree to disagree."

Israeli filmmaker Dan Wolman has never been particularly successful telling stories about Palestinians interacting with Israelis or, as in his current "Foreign Sister," the plight of undocumented Christian Ethiopian workers. And he has received much reaction to his film. "People don't realize that for these workers, going to Israel is a refuge, a chance to feed their families and return home to some comfort," he said.

These film festivals present a strong opportunity to mitigate the senseless human destruction. But films cannot referee disputes; their responsibility is to show what they know, to put a human face on what they see and try to avoid polemic and propagandizing.

Why else do Islamic fundamentalists ban all films, television and photographs if not to prevent their people from seeing the humanity of their foes?

Maybe more people should have digital cameras (or be given them) to tell their own stories and create a constant festival of life and vision. This exchange of stories could be used to re-humanize each other. Then even the most hard-hearted militarist or militant can speak the human language to the other side. By showing as many sides as possible, avoiding dismissive condescension, or even in allowing the civility of agreeing to disagree, dialogue can finally happen. Through this filmmaking that illuminates the plight of such people, there maybe a way out of all these conflicts