Terror in Jerusalem: The movie
New movie filmed in Mahane Yehuda market recreates suicide attack that killed six at start of second intifada
Eight years after a suicide bomber sowed death in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market, stallholders received a reminder Sunday of the horrors they witnessed that day, in which six people were murdered.
On the last day of filming for the movie 'Peace of Mind' (In Hebrew: Shlom Bayit) which addresses the situation in Jerusalem at the beginning of the Intifada, complex scenes were played out recreating the inferno. The movie is being directed by Aner Preminger and is to be screened next summer.
In the early morning hours, the actors stood among the market stalls with some 60 extras and pyrotechnical equipment. The film follows the story of a mother, played by Hagit Desberg, who witnessed the attack and as a result decides to lock her family inside the house.
The movie shows how the mother struggles to cope with the tension, worry and fears. In her attempts to safeguard her family, her sons and husband wake up to a locked and fortressed house, disconnected from the news and all that is happening outside its walls.
Scene from the filming (Photo: Yair Altman)
The movie does not shrink from opening old wounds, which have still not healed completely, in Israel's memory of the second Intifada – using difficult, detailed scenes from the attack in an intense manner which has never been seen before.
Preminger believes this is a "very important discourse in Israeli society, which is also relevant today." The film, he says, "deals with the question of whether the mother, who hasn't thought out what she is doing and has acted instinctively to protect her family, whether she is somehow not normal, or whether it's actually the society in which we live that is not normal."
Smoke and fire, this time not for real (Photo: Yair Altman)
"We all live in the same locked national home surrounded by fences and walls whose purpose is to protect us from an absurd reality," he says.
Preminger's production partner is Roni Katznelson, an experienced cameraman and lecturer at Sapir College who was also involved in filming "Air Time" and "White Lies." Outstanding students from Sapir College are also involved as well as some of Preminger's students from the Media Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The movie is being produced with almost no budget – Preminger himself has invested thousands of shekels in the movie. The actors are giving their time for free, at least for now, and will receive salaries only when expenses have been recovered when the movie is released. The Israel Film Fund has also granted the production NIS 220,000 (some $61,000), while equipment has been borrowed from Sapir College.
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