Duke Center for Jewish Studies Affiliated Faculty, Shai Ginsburg (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies), has helped organize the first international conference on Israeli documentary cinema as part of the Jerusalem International Film Festival.
The Duke Center for Jewish Studies is also proud to be a co-sponsor of this exciting event.
In recent years, Israeli documentary cinema has experienced unprecedented success, both in Israel and abroad. Still, attention has been largely limited to two of its constitutive themes—the Jewish Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Local and international audiences, as well as the scholarly community are yet to be exposed to its wealth and diversity. Beyond these two constitutive themes, Israeli documentary filmmaking deals with a wide range of political, social, and ethical issues.
“A Look from the Inside, a Look from the Outside” is the first conference to focus on Israeli documentary cinema. The conference seeks to go beyond the traditional boundaries that have determined the discussion of Israeli filmmaking thus far and suggests new directions for study and research. A discussion of diverse recent documentaries will allow us to probe the role documentary cinema plays in representing Israeli reality, in defining contemporary Israeliness, and the ethical implications of that cinema—with regard to both its themes and to the cinematic medium itself.
The conference brings together Israeli and International scholars from various disciplines: ethics, philosophy, phenomenology, cultural criticism and film theory. Through overlapping, intersecting, and oppositional glances, from the inside and from the outside, the conference offers new possibilities to know Israeli documentary cinema and decipher its unique charm.
Find out more at: http://www.jff.org.il/?CategoryID=968
Center for Jewish Studies