Ra’anan Alexandrowicz : Exposing Israeli law in the Palestinian territories - on the silver screen and on the web

Exposing Israeli law in the Palestinian territories - on the silver screen and on the web

New website picks up where Ra'anan Alexanderowicz's outstanding documentary 'The Law In These Parts' left off.

HAARETZ.COM|Di Nirit Anderman

When Ra’anan Alexandrowicz began working on the documentary “The Law in These Parts” (In Hebrew “Shilton Hahok”), he encountered many skeptical looks and heard quite a few warnings. “Some people said to me: ‘Be careful, you’re taking on something that’s impossible to turn into a film. The subject is too big, too complex, too dry,” he said four years ago.
Despite that, “The Law in These Parts,” which deals with the legal system in the territories, where Israel operates a military administration, has become one of the outstanding documentaries of recent years. He was able to attract viewers in Israel and worldwide to a fascinating journey in the wake of this strange system and the problems it creates, and won the prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and the Jerusalem Film Festival.
Yet the warnings were not superfluous, and the success of the film didn’t eliminate Alexandrowicz’s growing frustration. In order to make this film he devoted himself to an in-depth study that lasted several years, during which he read hundreds of books and documents, interviewed dozens of people and burrowed in all kinds of archives. But in the 100-minute film he could only include a very small percentage of the information he had gathered. The project that was born of this sense of frustration – an interactive website, based on the materials of the film as well and many other materials, which offers a new model for websites of documentaries – will be unveiled today at the Bialik Complex in Tel Aviv. This will be among the events put on by the CoPro Documentary Marketing Foundation – an annual event in which Israeli documentaries are presented to senior executives of foreign foundations and television networks.
The new website includes a database of filmed materials that didn’t make it into the film, documents and articles dealing with the film’s subject, and documentation of lectures and panels on the subject. An internal search engine enables users to find materials that interest them according to various cross-references, such as topics, the identity of the interviewees, and important questions (for example, what is the difference between the law in Israel and that in the territories?)
But the website invites them to go beyond passive watching and reading. For example, they are invited to enter an “editing room” where they can view raw materials and navigate among them according to various cross-references, and they can upload to the site film clips or articles that they have created by themselves in order to present a personal theory of their own.
“Making films as a medium for documentation has advantages and disadvantages,” explains Alexandrowicz. “The advantages are related to the type of experience that these films provide the viewer and their ability to bring him closer to a specific topic. I know that if I make a good film it will reach far more people than an article or a book on the same subject, and I also know that the type of experience I will give them will penetrate them more than a news report, for example, because it will contain an emotional journey and provide the viewers with various points of view. On the other hand, one of the disadvantages of the documentary medium, especially on complex subjects that require comprehensive research, is that in order to create these effects you have to narrow the focus in a way that is sometimes problematic.
“That was my problem in ‘The Law in These Parts’: I underwent a very long learning process, lots of materials and perspectives, and in spite of the film’s success and the discussion it aroused, in the final analysis I ended up very frustrated, because I felt that it was unable to cover the subject well, that the documentation was still too skimpy,” the director said.
That’s why immediately after finishing work on the film, Alexandrowicz and producer Liran Atzmor started to build the website, so they could provide those who are interested with a more comprehensive experience that the one provided by the film. The website makes it possible to shatter the traditional cycle of life of a documentary – if until now that included only distribution to movie theaters, being aired on television and a DVD, the website enables the continuation of the discussion about the film, with the lectures, articles and panels.
“In effect, here the wall between making a film and talking about it has been broken down, suddenly everything is accessible, and as long as people want to deal with the film. it continues to live even if its creators have already moved on and are dealing with new things,” says Alexandrowicz.
He and Atzmor hope the format they have created will also be of use to other documentarians and enable them to create “open docu.” But of course this idea is relevant only for documentaries based on comprehensive research, and not for films that focus on a small personal story. They say that the cost of setting up the website was about $150,000. Alexandrowicz hopes that the website will also succeed where so many documentary filmmakers fail: mobilizing the audience’s involvement in the subject of the film.