The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation
Israel, France / 2021 / 110 min
In Hebrew and English with English subtitles
Berlinale Documentary Award Special Mention, Berlin International Film Festival
New York Film Festival
Visions du Reel

Israeli director Avi Mograbi has been making films about Israel’s occupation of Palestine since the 1980s, but his latest work may be his sharpest and most cutting. Dubbed a “manual for a military occupation”, this discomfiting documentary features Mograbi speaking extensively to the audience, framing his evidence of political violence – first-person accounts from former Israeli soldiers, archival footage recounting Israel’s decades-long annexation of Palestine –as a “how-to” guide to seizing and subjugating the lands of others. The result is a sardonic documentary that subverts its own self-stated raison d'etre – by depersonalising the methods of the Israeli occupa-tion, Mograbi powerfully magnifies its cruelty, its inhumanity, and its hopelessness.

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Avi Mograbi
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* 06/11 4:25PM Broadway Cinematheque
09/11 9:50PM Broadway Cinematheque
10/11 7:45PM Broadway Cinematheque
21/11 3:50PM PREMIERE ELEMENTS
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