IOA Editor: Highly recommended! And, as noted below, this trailer will be removed this coming weekend – very few days left to watch it.
Seven Deadly Myths examines the concept of knowing and not knowing at the same time. Seeing and not comprehending what you see. It starts in the West Bank colony of Ariel where director Lia Tarachansky grew up. As she returns to the settlement, she discovers as though for the first time that it is surrounded by Palestinian villages, that the dispossessed are right next door, behind electrical fences, under watch towers, locked behind walls. But the Palestinians were not made invisible by accident. In 1948 when the first war between Israel and its neighbors broke out most of the Palestinians became refugees, their villages were demolished, and they were never allowed to return. In this film Lia talks to Israeli veterans of that war, whose expulsion operations were erased from Israeli textbooks attempting to deny the history of the biggest trauma in the Palestinian narrative and the year that changed the Middle East forever.
From Lia Tarachansky – 1 March 2011
IT’S OFFICIAL! Seven Deadly Myths goes PRO!
I’m so so thrilled to say that all your advice, donations, and support has finally paid off!
After many months of negotiations, I’m happy to announce that I have signed a development contract with Journeyman Pictures for the film!
Journeyman is one of the largest distribution companies in the world with an archive of thousands of documentaries. After their founder and director Mark Stucke became interested in our film (through the help of my friend and UK activist Frank Barat), he spent months giving me direction and advice on how to make it work. This led to the creation of the trailer that you’ve all seen and the streamlining of the Seven Deadly Myths story. After several months, Mark decided to personally take it on and has assigned a Journeyman team!!!
What does this mean
A development contract means that for the next six months Journeyman is going to attempt to fundraise a professional budget (one that it seems may only be small peanuts for them but impossible for me to attempt on my own). If this is successful, we’re going to produce the documentary from scratch, using the stories and materials I’ve already collected but re-shooting as much as possible in HD. The bonus of course is that I’ll get to co-direct with a professional team of camera people, editors, and scriptwriters, finally doing justice to the incredible people who’ve given their stories to our film!
(It also means that if Journeyman fails to fundraise this budget for whatever reason, all rights revert back to me and we continue this adventure as if I never wrote this e-mail).
Unfortunately, as part of our agreement, I’m going to have to take down the site (www.sevendeadlymyths.com) by the end of the week. So if for whatever reason you’d like to view anything on it or to watch the trailer, please do so before the weekend.
Yay and thank you all for giving this film the opportunity to get here. I couldn’t have done this without you, and as you’ve guessed – this is only the beginning!
“If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone’s individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, i think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.” – Wendell Berry
