Screenings of “Between Fences” at Vancouver International Film Festival

The dark and tragic irony that Israel, a nation of immigrants, has taken to interning refugees from Africa cannot have been lost on Avi Mograbi, a filmmaker whose ironic and passionate political documentaries are familiar to VIFF regulars. For the last few years, the Holot Detention Centre in the middle of the Negev Desert has been home to thousands of African refugees from Eritrea and Sudan. With no legal status in Israel and no government plans to deal with them, they are in an indefinite state of limbo. Into this Beckettian world come Mograbi and theatre director Chen Alon, who recruit some of the refugees for a workshop aimed at taking their experiences and giving them theatrical life. What happens speaks volumes both about the indomitable hopes of the refugees and the laissez-faire attitudes of the Israeli state.

• Director Avi Mograbi
• Country of Origin:Israel/France
• Year:2016
• Running Time:99 mins
• Producer: Camille Laemlé, Serge Lalou, Avi Mograbi

Generally considered the most fiercely independent of Israeli filmmakers, documentarist Avi Mograbi… returns to dance over the aching toes of his country’s establishment and the guilty consciences of his fellow countrymen. Most striking is the vivacity and high spirits of the detention centre’s inmates, conscious of their sad fate but never considering the option of giving up. As tragically grotesque as the events recounted can be, there is a sense of affirmative faith in life reconfirmed time and again by the attitude and personalities of the performers.