The Other Voices 2008 On the Road Film Festival offers a platform for marginalized voices from Israeli and Palestinian societies in a unique way.
By HANNAH WEITZER
This June, the Other Voices 2008 On the Road Film Festival offers a platform for marginalized voices from Israeli and Palestinian societies in a unique way. Rather than holding the festival in mainstream venues, it's instead in the periphery - bringing marginalized voices to the marginalized themselves. The 8-day festival, which already began in Sderot, continues this week in Kfar Kara, continuing to Jerusalem and then concludes in Ramle. Each community hosts the festival for 2 days with film screenings, encounters with artists, musical performances and more. All is open to the public free of charge. Most films screened are documentaries from the past decade by Jewish and Palestinian directors, expressing a range of personal stories and collective narratives. An initiative of the Other Voices Association for the Empowerment of the Individual through Media, the festival is a culmination of a year of local action in each host community. The yearlong activities and the festival itself are working to develop a model of multi-cultural dialogue through film, which integrates culture, media and social change, while providing a platform for encounters between diverse voices, placing an emphasis on Jewish-Palestinian partnership.
The festival arrives at Kfar Kara's Science Garden today and tomorrow from 4:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. At the Ganim Community Center in the Kiryat Menachim neighborhood of Jerusalem on June 16 and 17, from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Then at the Ramle Amal Orthodox Elementary School on June 18 from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. and at the Clore Community Center on June 19 from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. (077) 664-5141