Dan's Papers - October 19, 2007 - Spotlight Documentary: To Die In Jerusalem

Writer and director Hilla Medalia has many people that are heading to the Hamptons International Film Festival talking about her documentary, To Die In Jerusalem. Her documentary follows the lives of two mothers, one whose daughter was killed in a suicide bombing attack in 2002 and the other whose daughter was the suicide bomber. It is a very heavy film.

Medalia grew up in Ramat Hasharon, Israel. "Growing up in Israel, especially in the mid-90s, there was always the reality of terrorism. There was always somebody you knew that had gotten hurt. I had seen a bombing very up close when I was in my early twenties. There was a bombing in Tel Aviv at a bus station that I was very close to," Hilla told me in an interview.

"I read about the two mothers in the news and when I saw pictures of the two daughters side by side I was stunned. It was incredible how similar the two looked and how pretty they were. I just said to myself that I had to make this film. I felt a responsibility to make this film"

It was from there that Medalia became inspired to follow the story of Abigail, the mother of 17-year-old Rachel Levy, the Israeli girl who was killed on March 29, 2002 inside of a grocery store by a suicide bomber of the same age and sex, 17-year-old Palestinian Ayat al-Akhras. In the opening scene of the film Abigail makes it clear what she wants to accomplish. "I'd like to talk to the mother of my daughter's killer," she said.

Through the camera lens, Medalia takes the viewer into the very complex emotions of these two mothers, the unbelievably complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the purist and rawest emotions of humanity and gives a glimpse into the minds of the common Palestinian and Israeli and their opposing views on one of the longest and most disturbing conflicts of our time.

What the film shows is striking, from a prison where a teenaged girl is receiving three life sentences and 80 years for attempting a suicide terrorist attack, to the bitter tears of Ayat al-Akhras's sister, declaring to the camera that she will kill thirty more in revenge for those that forced her sister into Martydeom before completely breaking down and having to be carried out.

Abigail walks into the prison and asks, with the assistance from a translator, a convicted teenaged girl suicide bomber, who was caught before she detonated herself in a public area, "Why do this? What have they done to you?"

"They killed my family," she replied in Arabic, with a cold manner.

In another scene, Ayat's mother's eyes swelled up with tears as she said, "If I could have stopped her I would have. I would have stopped her by force if I had to. I hope that you never have to taste this pain."

The remarkable film will be broadcast on HBO during the fall, and will, without a doubt, draw much attention to HIFF for its power and rawness. But the purpose of this film is not just to explore the emotions of mothers who have lost their daughters due to this terrible conflict, but also about showing how similar both sides of the controversy are and how similar their logic and emotions can be. What struck me the most about viewing the pictures of the two passed daughters were their physical similarity and the pain that both families suffered from the tragedy.

Medalia told me, "It is really easy to follow Abigail on one hand, but on the other hand her journey is a microcosm for the entire conflict. How she felt about meeting Ayat's mother was very complex. On one level she wanted to go on this journey because she wanted to commemorate the death of her daughter and on another she was very curious about who was this girl that killed her daughter. I also think that she wanted to make the difference."

But the rationality of the two mothers who sit together for hours trying to reach an understanding and a sense of peace with their loss is a display of effort that delivers a powerful message to the viewer. Medalia told me of her firsthand account, "There was a lot emotion involved and for the most part it was very intense. They sat together for four hours and neither of them wanted to leave the room without a resolution. And I think that this is the hope."