Merging documentary with sci-fi, a new film narrates the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian city in 1948, and imagines what it would look like if the war never happened. So the Israeli government banned it from being screened.
Two hours before I was due to attend the debut screening in Israel of Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland’s film “Lyd” earlier this month, I received a message from the organizers informing me that it was canceled. Police, under instruction from Culture Minister Miki Zohar, had forced Jaffa’s Palestinian-run Al-Saraya Theater to call off the event. Their pretext was a century-old British Mandate ordinance obliging theaters to obtain prior approval for every film they screen — but for Zohar, it seemed there was another factor at play.
“The film presents a delusional, lying picture in which IDF soldiers allegedly committed a brutal massacre,” the minister said before its cancellation. His statement followed pressure from the right-wing group B’tsalmo, which had already planned to protest the screening at Al-Saraya, smearing Younis as an “inciter” and warning that the film “could cause terror attacks by Israeli Arabs.” ….more
