Film creators Karni and Elias
Photo: Avi Cohen
Dugit: From hope to destruction
Director Gil Karni kept a close on the Dugit settlement in the northern Gaza Strip for 6 years. It started as a dream about a Greek island and co-existence between left-wing settlers with Palestinian fisherman, passed through deluxe villas that were built between cement walls and guard towers – and ended when an IDF officer knocked on the door with an order of eviction. As always, the simple people pay the price of the decisions of politicians. The story of a dream that became a nightmare
(VIDEO) "Stormy Waters" director Gil Karni says his film documenting the Dugit settlement in the northern Gaza Strip over the last six years, says his film that is set to compete in the documentary catergory of the Amsterdam Film Festival didn't quite turn out the way he and cinematographer Mani Elias planned.
"We wanted to document a story of peace between simple human beings – but we wound up documenting ruin and destruction. We saw the fisherman and the farmers pay the price and become cynical play things in the hands of politicians and decision makers."
Karni and Elias hope that the moments they experienced and documented in the film for six years will reach the hearts of many people around the world. Their film will be shown on Saturday in a world premier screening at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam in Holland as part of the prestigious Joris Ivens competition for full length documentary films
Only a few Israeli directors have ever taken part in this festival and competition.
Near the Green Line
Dugit was located deep in the northern Gaza Strip, three kilometers from the 1967 Green Line. Only one kilometer separated between it from the large Jebalya refugee camp. In 1984 the Israeli government designated the land for a Greek-style fishermen's village (or at least that's how it marketed the idea to the first settlers). The community was established in 1990.
Director Karni and cinematographer Elias traveled to Dugit in August 1999. Karni: "I'd heard about the fisherman on the shores of Dugit. When we got there the first time we fell in love with the place and its special atmosphere. The shore was teeming with activity; dozens of Israeli and Palestinian fisherman worked shoulder to shoulder, divided their money and fish equally. It was really a commune of fisherman, without nationality and borders".
Ironically, at the time both Karni and Elias thought the scene was too ideal to be interesting for a film and shelved the idea. But a year later, the sounds of explosions and gunfire replaced the murmur of the waves and the calls of the seagulls as the al-Aqsa Intifada erupted.
All of a sudden the quiet idyllic village of fishermen awoke from the false reality and deceptive peace that had taken a decade to build. Tanks, cement walls and guard towers appeared in the once-calm village. Tracer bullets that passed over the caravan roofs split the night sky. Settlement children started to make their ways to school in armored military vehicles.
On the other side – practically nothing remained of the green fields, the hot houses, the chicken coops, the vineyards and the orchards. In the IDF they called this "exposure". The vain enchantment of what was planned as another Mikonos had suddenly become a battlefield.
In October 2000 Karni and Elias returned to Dugit. This time they decided to stay until the end.
Says Karni, "We returned to see up close what remained of the bond between the Palestinian and Israeli fishermen. At first there was still a telephone connection, but that expired with the escalation of the intifada. So I essentially saw the change that happened to those settlers.
Endangered lives
The "left-wing settlers" found their lives endangered
The Goren family is one of two families featured in the film. Karni describes the Gorens as "left-wingers" and said it was only their love of the sea that brought them to Dugit.
"The only ideology of the Goren family was 'love of the sea'. They belong to the left side of Israeli politics. And suddenly their children are in substantial daily danger. This danger elicited hostility towards the Arab neighbors who just yesterday were friends and partners along the way. All of a sudden they became enemies."
One day Karni and Elias visit Dugit the day a 60 km bomb exploded, and that missed by a minute or two the bus that was transporting the Goren family children. The atmosphere was electrified, the anger tremendous, and they say the incident defined the beginning of "crisis point" for the settlers.
"They had had enough," they say. "Tova Goren, who dreamt of managing a successful fish restaurant on the coast together with the Palestinians, understood that she would never open the restaurant. Now she only hoped for the moment she could leave."
Karni and Elias continued to film as the killing continued on both sides – soldiers, settlers and Palestinian farmers. Mortars started to fall, terrorists tried to infiltrate the electrified fence that surrounds the settlement, and the government kept building new neighborhoods and issuing building permits for panicked settlers, who ultimately wanted to get the hell out of there.
House just finished
In 2004, after they withdrew behind electrified fences and four years after friends and family members stopped visiting, it seemed to Ayal and Tova Goren that the sun was beginning to shine: after 12 years in a caravan, they finally had their own home. At the same time, Roni Cohen was building a home in the settlement. They had their housewarming party in April, only four months before its destruction.
When the decision was made to evacuate the settlements in the Gaza Strip, the Goren family they breathed deeply and started to count down the days. Karni says, "As opposed to the prevailing mood in the country and in the other settlements in the Gaza Strip at the time, the people of Dugit, with all the trouble and pain from collapse of the dream, just wanted to go somewhere quiet."
Karni says the moment Ayal Goren received his eviction notice brought him to tears. It happened again a few days later, when he saw Goren destroying his home himself with an army bulldozer.
"From my perspective this was a moment of catharsis, I'd hoped for them that this episode in their lives, that began with a dream but became a nightmare, would come to an end. When evening came, the sun set and Mani the cameraman and I stood across from the fishermen's village that became a wave of stones, it was hard to understand how the State of Israel cooked up a reality that brought blood and destruction from both sides – and finally we returned to the starting place."
The Film "Stormy Waters" will be screened in the framework of productions for Channel 2 Television and was produced with the aid of the New Fund for Cinema and Television.
