[TRAILER 'ROADMAP TO APARTHEID']
DOCU | 2012 | 94 min
English spoken, Dutch/French subtitles
Ana Nogueira is a journalist and first-time filmmaker. She worked as a producer for the national daily radio and TV news program Democracy Now! in the United States for four years and later as a correspondent for the show. She is also a founding member of the New York City Independent Media Center and the global Indymedia network which was a pioneer in citizen-produced journalism. Nogueira was born in South Africa.
Eron Davidson is a long-time media activist and also a first-time filmmaker. He has previously produced several short videos that have helped to galvanize excitement for various community organizing projects in the United States. Davidson was born in Israel.
To what extent have your backgrounds, Ana as a white South African, and Eron as a Jewish Israeli, impacted your inspiration to make the film?
Those facts had a great influence on our motivation to make the film. We felt it put us in a position to have a personal connection to the subject, and to learn from it ourselves as we produced it. While neither of us lived in our countries of birth for very long, we both felt an obligation to address the issues of inequality in both countries that we personally benefitted from.
Where did the idea come from to make the film, and what made you choose the topic?
The idea to do the film came to us in 2004. Ana was working for Democracy Now ! and had spent much of her time as a producer there covering the Second Intifada. It was through that that she learned the details of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. The more she learned, the more she saw the parallels with South African apartheid. Eron was simultaneously learning more about the actual situation in the West Bank and Gaza, and wanted to learn more about the apartheid comparison. At the time, the apartheid analogy used to describe the situation in Israel/Palestine was becoming more common yet often used somewhat rhetorically. We wanted to present a more robust thesis on why the apartheid analogy was being used, and to convey clearly the various ways Israel violates the United Nations Convention Against the Crime of Apartheid. We spent several years researching before we started filming.
At many points in the film almost exact video evidence of similar events in South Africa and Palestine are shown. Was it difficult to have access to such archives? How long did this research take?
The archival footage research was a big part of producing this film and it was painstaking for sure. Access to this material is easy to come by, as long as you have the patience to search corporate media databases and have the money to pay for the use of it. We turned to the public to support us in this, using “crowd-funding” via the Kickstarter website. It was heartening to see all the support the film got before it was even finished. We couldn’t have done it with out the help of the almost 400 people who donated something to pay for the archival licenses.
How was the filmmaking carried out?
We spent about half a year in Palestine and Israel filming, as well as a few months in South Africa.
We did not start off with a pre-written script. We just decided to go film in many different towns, speak to many different kinds of people, hit on every issue, and then come back and figure out what to do with it all. That might have been one of our bigger mistakes, because we came back with enough footage and enough stories for 10 strong documentaries! Needless to say, the puzzle of trying to fit it everything we had to say into a 90 minute film, and picking from over 150 hours of footage, most of which needed translating, was the bulk of the job and took us a couple of years to do.
Were there any difficulties you faced during filming and production period?
Too many to list! The biggest one though was funding. If we had had decent funding, the film would have taken us half the amount of time to produce, not least because we would be able to hire people to help us who had some experience in film making. As it was, we made 1000 mistakes along the way, mostly technical, that saw us doing everything the hard way, and multiple times over.
What kind of audience did you envision when making the film?
We tried to shape the film so that people completely unfamiliar with Israel and Palestine would be able to follow the story, and people who are very familiar with the situation would learn something new. From what we have heard so far, we seem to have succeeded on both counts.
Has your film been projected in Israel-Palestine and in South Africa? And if so what have been some of the responses/ reactions?
We just returned from a screening tour in Palestine. There were 25 screenings in 2 weeks. We went to about half of them, full house at every one. The response was amazing. People were very appreciative of the film showing the plight of Palestinians everywhere, and tackling so many issues in one film. Many learned new things about the apartheid comparison, and it also led to intense discussions about solutions. Many agreed that the two-state solution is dead in the water, but have little hope that there can be a one-state solution as in South Africa. But it opened up much needed conversation amongst Palestinians themselves about what the future looks like.
In South Africa the film went on a national tour as part of the Israeli Apartheid week in early March. It was screened 23 times, and was reviewed in two major newspapers there. For young South Africans, the film is a reminder of what their parents went through not too long ago, and a call to action to not let the same thing happen elsewhere. This summer the film will go on tour in South Africa again, this time as part of several film festivals, including the Durban International Film festival in July, which we hope to be present at.
A more personal question: did either of you receive any backlash from within your own communities for deciding to make the film?
No. So far, our friends and families have been very supportive.
This was your first time directing a film, how would you evaluate this experience?
Well, we keep saying Roadmap to Apartheid is both our first and last film. It was a very challenging experience, especially since we were teaching ourselves film making as we went. Without a budget to speak of, we were doing the work of a dozen people. And I think we made every mistake in the book. If we were to do another film, I think it would go a lot smoother, because we wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes. But I think we need a lot of time to recover from the amount of energy we spent on this film, not to mention that it’s not over yet. Now comes the even more daunting task of distribution, something we also know nothing about!
To what extent do you believe in cinema as a tool to achieve change?
Media in general is an incredibly powerful tool for change. It is how people communicate, share ideas and experiences with each other, and learn from one another. Unfortunately, the corporate media has completely failed to perform this primary function, so it is left to independent journalists, artists, and media makers to take this on themselves. Different media formats perform different services. While short news reports can be extremely effective at keeping people well informed on a particular issue, a feature length documentary is most useful for looking at an issue in depth, not focusing on the daily progress of a particular issue but looking at the big picture, the long-term. We chose feature length because there are many dots to connect in the apartheid analogy, and nothing short of a feature length film, or a book, could do that.
Do you have any future projects together, or separately, in the field of cinema?
As mentioned before, we have to focus on getting this film out to a wide audience before we can even think of any other projects. It’s a full time job in and of itself, and will likely take another two years. But once it is out, we both hope to stay engaged in Palestine solidarity efforts, probably turning to short video report format to keep the issue in the public eye.
Roadmap to Apartheid will be screened in:
Studio Skoop Ghent (23.04.2012) with introduction by David Cronin, journalist and author of 'Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation' (Pluto Press, 2011)
Bibliotheek Permeke, Antwerp (25.04.2012) with introduction by Anja Meulenbelt, writer, feminste and politician
Daarkom Brussels (4.05.2012) with introduction by David Cronin
