A Day in the Life of Siham

English subtitles available

A Day in the Life of Siham is a film of six minutes. It was produced for Women's International Day, March 8, 2007, by the Shabibe Umalieh youth group in Kufr Qara, Israel, under the instruction of Galit Hinon and Video48.

The film follows Siham Allawi, an agricultural laborer and member of the Workers Advice Center (WAC-MA’AN www.workersadvicecenter.org) from dawn, when she goes to work, until evening, when she attends an empowerment course. We hear Siham in the field saying how she used to work illegally for a middleman (ra’is) who took almost half her salary. Now she works legally, with a pay slip and benefits, and she has the backing of WAC. “Wednesday is the most important day in my life” says Siham as she enters the empowerment class in WAC’s center. “I learned things about myself that I never knew existed in me, like the love for reading, like socializing with others." Siham deals very powerfully with the stigma attached to women who do manual jobs. At one point she tells the camera: "Work is nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t want to sit at home and complain to my husband that his salary is not enough. We shouldn’t sit around waiting for redemption. No, go out, struggle, help your family and yourself." This short film has been shown to many audiences on different occasions. It moves people even after seeing it a dozen times.

Who Will Pick the Avocados?

Director: Shiri Wilk
Photography: Dror Tzadok
Production: Video 48

Who Will Pick the Avocados?, a 20-minute documentary, by Shiri Wilk of Video 48, follows an international trade-union delegation as it studies the labor market in Israel's agricultural sector. The six delegates hail from the US, Spain, Germany and Thailand. Invited by The Workers Advice Center, they witness a sector that is manipulated by profit-driven personnel companies in a context of volatile political conflict.

The film presents the hardships of three groups: local Arab women, thirsty to improve their life by finding work; Thais who arrive bonded by huge debts, ready to compete for jobs at any cost; and Palestinians stuck behind the separation wall.

The film is far from pitting one group against another. Through meetings with government officials and the Thai ambassador, we learn to identify the policy makers who evade their responsibility to the workers - all workers.

In interviews, the delegates draw on past experience. They remind us that things would look very different today if a labor union, the government and local authorities had taken steps to prevent the chaos.

The film ends at WAC's May Day celebration. Thai delegate Junya Lek tells the crowd: "I don't want to say 'Israelis,' and I don't want to say 'Palestinians.' Let's all unite on this day." Israeli poet Yehoshua Simon then reads from his Hebrew version of the Almanac Singers' "Talking Union." The poem mesmerizes the crowd with new lights from an old song for the youth of Israel in 2007. Simon ends with Pete Seeger's lines:

Then if you don't let red-baiting break you up,
If you don't let stoolpigeons break you up…
If you don't let race hatred break you up,
You'll win. What I mean, take it easy, but take it!

For the full account of the delegation's trip see Challenge 103 or WAC web site

The Mall

2005, documentary, 12 minutes, Hebrew and Arabic (translation into English and Hebrew)

Direction and screenplay: Yonatan Ben Efrat
Cinematography: Gonen Glazer
Editing: Shari Ezouz
In collaboration with the World Health Organization and the Rabinowitz Foundation

For us, the shopping mall is a definitive Western symbol of affluence and plenty. As we walk in, time stops, we enter another world - one that satisfies all our needs and thirst for thrills. But not in this case. At Geha Intersection, a major intersection in Greater Tel Aviv, a fifteen minute drive from Tel-Aviv, hundreds of Palestinians, illegal workers have found shelter in a shopping mall. They live in three underground floors, beneath the foundations of a shopping-mall whose construction was abandoned, without electricity, air, or water. Amid the choking stench, mattresses, blankets and other belongings are scattered on the floor, remnants of the lives of workers who try to preserve a human form even in subhuman conditions.

Broadcast:
Israel's documentary channel (YES DOCO), 2007

Festivals:
Jerusalem film festival, Israel, 2006
Cinema du reel, Paris, 2007
Rotterdam film festival, 2007
Documenta, Madrid, 2007
Oxdox, Oxford, 2007
Rooftop film festival, NY, 2007
Doclisboa, Lisbon, 2007

Awards:
Special Mention for best short documentary at Doc Lisboa

The Thirst to Work

2005, documentary, 10 minutes, Arabic (translation to English and Hebrew)

Direction & screenplay: Sharon Horodi
Camera: Shirli Wilk
Editing :Sharon Horodi & Shirli Wilk
Created for International Women's Day 2005

Across the world, going out to work is an integral way in which women improve their social and economic status. In Arab society, though, this is not a given.
In recent years most of Israel's large textile-factories have closed down. Once the chief income source for thousands of Arab women, their closing has created a vacuum that restricts the women's ability to work.
Unemployment and poverty have meant that the Arab street is suffering from intensifying religiosity, and its women are closing themselves off in their homes. Yet the tough economic situation forces thousands of women to look for a job.
For women, work is first and foremost a source of income, and a means of raising her own standard of living and her family's. Working outside the home also shatters her social isolation. Many employers exploit the social situation of women, and the dearth of jobs, and women often encounter humiliating treatment and exploiting work-conditions.

Oliveland

2003, documentary, two minutes, Hebrew and Arabic (translation to English and Hebrew)

Direction & cinematography: Shiri Wilk
Screenplay: Wilk, Meisler, Nader
Editing: Gili Meisler
Sound: Doron Silber

Sponsored by: Sindyanna of Galilee - a fair trade organization producing and marketing olive oil

Oliveland is a film about the two faces of the olive, of "coexistence" between Arabs and Jews in the Galilee. It shows on the one hand, the longtime Arab residents whose land was expropriated by the State of Israel, thus preventing their economic development. It then shows the Jewish citizens who arrived here in the framework of the racist project for "Judaizing the Galilee", and live privileged lives with massive support from state institutions. Abed and David, the film's protagonists, are neighbors live next door to each other - one in the Arab village of Dir Hanna and the other in the Jewish settlement of Hararit.
Both have a powerful love for the olive trees: for Abed the olive is a constrained source of livelihood which requires immense difficulties, while for David the olive is a romantic symbol which he mixes with hedonism and nostalgia before the cameras. David ends by seeking inner peace - but not political peace. At the end of the film, spectators learn that Hararit was founded in 1982 as part of the Judaization of the Galilee project, on land expropriated from Dir Hanna.

Festivals Toronto Arab film Festival - July 2005