Arts and Culture 30 January 2012
In the early summer of 2011, a group of three friends, two from Belgium and one from France, decided to pitch their resources together to make a documentary about the village of Nabi Saleh. Jan Beddegenoodts, Niel Iwens, and Rachel De Plaen spent months filming the inhabitants of the tiny village as they went about their daily lives, in addition to the weekly protests on Fridays.
Says De Plaen:
“The choice of Nabi Saleh was made by Jan. When we met together, he told me that he wanted to make a documentary on Palestine with his friend Niel so we brainstormed [about themes] and came up with Resistance and so on. Jan went to Nabi Saleh in June and found that it was an actual example of Palestinian resistance. We fell in love with the village and are really concerned about the situation in Palestine so i guess that the photos, videos and the documentary we put together is a way to show the situation of Palestine in Europe so one [would be inspired] to try to make some change there.”
The trailer for the documentary, called “We Are Nabi Saleh” was finally released on January 26th. Poignantly, the last shot is of the late Mustafa Tamimi, who was murdered in December after an Israeli soldier fired a tear gas canister at his face from a close distance.
Da Plaen hopes the full documentary will be released in April, yet acknowledges that with two of the documentary makers busy with a full time job, it’ll be difficult but they’re crossing their fingers for it to be out “inshallah before Nakba Day [May 15th].”
For more information, check out their website.
