You
I'll pull it in your head
I'll pull it in your head
I'll pull it in your head
I'll pull it in your head
I'll pull it in your head
I'll pull it in your head
I'll pull it in your head
I'll pull it in your head
I don't think we have any choice.
Art must make a difference.
Art is probably the last remaining free space today.
There isn't another space like it.
It's a space we cultural producers, artists, writers, filmmakers, dancers, actors can invent, can speculate, can dream of a better world.
If we don't do it within the world of culture, where can we do it?
I've been accused of being idealistic.
I've had journalists come up to me and say, people I know well, which really surprised me in saying, Philip, you know, you shouldn't be so idealistic.
Just drop it, you've done your bit, move on and do something else.
Maybe I could do that if I could say give it all to someone who I knew was going to pick it up with the same amount of passion.
But unfortunately, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself in my own sort of bumbling way.
I'm sure there's better ways for me to do it, but you're trying to get the message out to as many people as you can.
That's frustrating, but if you don't try, then you don't get anything, do you?
I would love to think that I'm making a difference.
Engaging an audience, that's what I would like to do.
And once you engage them, even for a few minutes, then maybe you give them something that they haven't seen before and can take with them and be a little bit richer in their thinking.
My goal is always to kind of try and present another unexpected angle on the situation, be it social, political, personal.
That's what I'm looking for, to kind of break down stereotypical thinking and say, look, reality is a little bit more complex than what you think you know.
That's what I'm looking for.
That's what I'm looking for.
That's what I'm looking for.
That's what I'm looking for.
Hell yeah.
It.
When Wars taught it, I was very angry, like everybody was.
First, I couldn't believe what's happening.
You just can't believe that this can happen in your country,
that this is happening, that people are being killed.
And nobody, not even that they are not helping us,
but they are stopping us from defending ourselves.
So, you know, you're a young man.
Obviously, frankly, I was full of hate.
Ouh, what up?
What are you looking at?
This really isn't Islam.
We are planning for three years to be broadcasting
twice a week a radio drama series, a so-called Soap,
of 15-minute eats where fictional characters play out the psychological and sociological
mechanisms that led to genocide in Rwanda and also are happening in the country now.
All the problems in the country today with trying to reconcile and prisoners coming back
to villages where they meet their former victims, all these problems are personified
in radio drama that we broadcast.
And then we also make a historical documentary magazine that talks about the mechanisms that
have led to genocide elsewhere in the world.
And this is directed towards a more educational, educated audience, where the drama, the radio
soap is directed to the majority of the people in the hills of Rwanda.
Nobody knows about us here, nobody, nobody.
I was very unhappy with the way that what is going on in Israel, you know, occupation-wise.
And I wanted to show what is going on, what does it mean for us to be occupying the territories,
how does it affect us, how does it affect the Palestinians, what is really going on.
The checkpoint is like one of the best places to show the banality of occupation because
every Palestinian have to go to these checkpoints, they have these encounters with the Israeli
soldiers over there, which is like an incredible clash between the two sides.
And I think it can give the audience in Israel a clear idea about what is it really like,
what does it mean for them when they have to live under occupation, what does it mean
that they have to send their kids to school or go to a doctor or to visit relatives or
to go to a funeral or to go to a wedding, you know, it's like this kind of thing that
consists daily life.
And then I think in the film you see exactly what does it mean, what the banality of occupation
means.
And I think it also like gives a very clear portrait of how does it affect Israeli society
because you see the soldiers there and I think you can see how damaging it is for them as
well and it reflects on our society eventually and so that was kind of the logic behind checkpoint.
If the idea of the colonization of Palestine is to erase the traces of Palestine, it's
a non-success, Palestine exists and this is something, it means it exists and the conscience
of it exists and what maybe I think it's very visual is to what extent this two geography,
this two people are so inside one of the other.
By letting Israel to act above the law, it's very important for Israel to act above the law
it's more and more outside the law, it means it becomes one of the criminal states which
exist in the planet but because it's a close ally of the dominant thinking today which is
western thinking, so it's considered as a country that should be protected.
Ok sir, thank you.
Why are they doing this?
They're being punished for their work.
I'm the old man, I'm the one who doesn't do the work.
I'm the one who's doing the work.
Who's going to do the work?
Who's going to do the work?
You're a child.
Who's going to do the work?
Who's going to do the work?
I'm the one who's going to do the work.
I'm the one who's doing the work.
I'm much aware, I mean, Israelis, people like me, you know, people I know, people I speak to,
are aware that we're a democracy and there should be the freedom of speech.
But at the same time, people I think are also questioning whether we haven't really
been taken for a ride by the whole dream of peace, you know, taken for a ride by Arafat,
taken for a ride by Sharon.
These two guys are the biggest liars in the last 100 years, I think.
Two of them, both of them, lying to each other, lying to their people.
And when people say, yeah, then they say, OK, we shouldn't play into the hands.
Why should we give anybody an edge in this kind of situation?
Why should we show any kind of art that is very supportive of the Palestinian cause
when the Palestinian regime doesn't even want, doesn't seem to want to have peace?
You know, these are the thinking of people, not myself necessarily,
but if I can gauge it in a very general way, that's how people think these days.
And so they're less open to kind of pushing it, pushing it, pushing it in that direction
and really making a big effort to show political art.
This is the classic point of view. This is how people send their art.
After that, the people of Yitzchitzchah will recognize it as soon as they see it,
and they will want what they want, don't let them do it.
They will be proud of it, they will be proud of it.
And from now on, you will want it.
You will want to be proud of it, you will want to be proud of it.
I think that we artists must use every single space available out there to comment on society,
on life, on the world, and where we are going as a society, as human beings.
There is still some capacity for the art world to create noise and to speak.
So I think that it's very interesting and it's a very good sign
that we are capable of creating works that create reactions.
The Mongra Highland Group, they have a history of fighting with the French,
and they were recruited by the CIA in the late 60s
to help disrupt troop supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
try to rescue downed American pilots, things of that nature.
And they were the brave and erstwhile allies of the states,
but unfortunately when the states pulled out and the peace accord was signed,
everyone was supposed to go home.
The Americans left and basically abandoned these people.
A lot of them managed to get to the states,
but the ones that were left behind were completely cut off and abandoned,
and they had been fighting in the somewhat naive belief
that their American allies would one day come back and rescue them,
and that's where we are right now in 2003.
This particular group though that numbered something like over 7,000 people in 1975,
they're now down to when we were there in January to 843 people.
I've been told to be very careful about using the word genocide,
but if you're trying to execute even part of an ethnic group
because of their beliefs, that to me is genocide.
I've never been anywhere where there has been such an oppressive feeling
of complete and utter lack of hope and desolation.
And the time living with these people was literally like living with ghosts.
I mean I don't see the problem in terms of intervention.
It's just a very basic human rights issue that doesn't need any further investigation.
It's like here are the facts, we need to stop it.
Gopal, don't worry, he'll be okay.
Next year, boy.
I'm going to be a little bit more careful.
I'm going to be a little bit more careful.
I'm going to be a little bit more careful.
I'm going to be a little bit more careful.
There are villages in India with absolutely no women.
And according to the recent data by UNESCO,
50 million women have gone missing from the population of India in the last 100 years
because of the practices related to gender discrimination.
And the sex ratio in India is very, very poor.
There are villages in India with no women, absolutely no women.
They go out of their villages to different neighbouring villages or countries to buy women.
They go to Bangladesh, they go to Nepal and they buy women from there
and bring them to their villages because they have no women.
Mr. Pratap, do you believe 100% that your daughter is a girl?
What are you saying, Mr. Pratap?
No, I don't understand, Mr. Pratap,
why have you kept a girl like a diamond hidden?
If I didn't keep it hidden, do you think my girl would have been alive?
She would have been killed as soon as she was born like other girls.
What are we talking about at this age?
At this age, people will treat her like a child.
I just want to see a good family and get her married.
I'll get you a diamond, Mr. Pratap.
I'm telling you, if you find a diamond,
you won't find a boy or a family or a house.
You don't know what you have hidden in your house.
The more you ask, the more you'll get.
The more?
Yes, the more.
One lakh?
Give it to me.
One lakh?
India is a country which is living in a lot of centuries at the same time.
We are still in a way living in the 18th century.
A lot of our thinking doesn't fit this century at all.
It fits the 18th century quite well.
We haven't changed much.
When I say this, I'm not saying that everybody but India is a big country.
When I say that we live in the 18th century at the same time as the 21st century,
I mean a large number of people.
Their attitude towards life, towards culture, towards religion, towards women, towards work,
towards their children, towards their families.
It's very out of fashion and it needs to be changed and revised.
They came to me and said, it's a good film but please don't show it outside India.
Because they are worried that it will spoil the reputation of India.
They don't want these things to be discussed.
And my thing is, unless or until you discuss things, how are you going to solve the problem?
You have to know the problem. Only then you will solve it.
They don't want to know the problem.
They just want to bury their head in the sand and pretend that everything is fine.
That's the problem. Definitely they got offended.
Negative. First you have to be sure to set the fire between the sikhs and the bravo.
Understand? Speak.
Affirmative. Speak.
Do you know the number of people to evacuate? Speak.
Negative. Speak.
Arizona 2, don't move. I'm going to speak louder. I remind you.
Finish.
Understood. Finish.
What the hell are we doing here?
We are at Bosnian barricade near the town of Tuzla, talking to the Bosnian commander.
How do you feel about the talks in Geneva?
I'd like to go there. Would you go with me?
Are you resentful that people are talking while you were suffering?
What's happening?
Well, it's very confused. We go now and bring some help.
Why don't you tell them the truth?
I think most of people that live to war become so-how pacifists.
Which doesn't mean I'll let somebody kill me. I'll defend myself.
I'll try to find any solution. I think any solution is better than war.
We didn't know that we were living a big day.
That would be a one-day event. Everything would be closing down right after.
This is one of the things. Looking back at it, you say,
maybe I would have done differently. Maybe I would have looked at things very differently.
If I had known, that was it. That was one day. Your chance for one day to see
everything that was going on.
But when you're at 25, you don't put the question as much as I would do now.
We couldn't believe in a way that they didn't care about us.
At the beginning, for several hours in the morning, they just ignore us
and just walk into the city and take positions at the crossroads and things like this.
Things happen. Eventually, you don't have time. You just record your movement
and your sing. You go and you don't put any thinking into motion.
It's really way after that you start analyzing what went on for that day.
When you do it, when you go to places, you have the feeling that
you are going to bring something which is the truth.
You are going to bring something which is going to reform your society,
all people around you and something. The wish is to change things,
to bring another mentality.
Eventually, getting into the news and reporting on situations which are not known
to the public and to most people around, you really hope to make some difference
and to elevate the debate.
Making a difference is something which has been all along my path.
Image is more important in many ways for us than the word.
It doesn't mean that the word is not important.
But having the contact with the misery, with the people who do have problems,
this is really a direct contact, even through the lens.
You want to transfer. If you can, transfer this look,
the people, these people and these parents.
If you can transfer this look into your picture and people do react to it,
you are going to use certain that you are going to make a difference at the end of the day.
I think what I can add as an artist and not a journalist, we can add poetry.
I think we can inform, but we can also inform in a different way.
We can inform with poetry, we can inform with beauty,
we can suggest ways of engagement, we can create a dialogue,
we can contextualize properly.
I always cite William Carlos Williams, whose poem really says it all.
It says, it is difficult to get the news from poems,
yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.
So, I don't know why that's kind of saying it.
I'm pulling in your head, I'm pulling in your head
I'm pulling in your head.
