About this project

IN THE IMAGE: CAPTURING THE STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS

IN THE IMAGE is a documentary about Palestinian women who film human rights abuses throughout the occupied West Bank.  Each woman in our film belongs to the Camera Project, a unique collaboration of Jews and Palestinians who use video to fight for justice, equality, and against intimidation by Israeli settlers and soldiers. Most importantly, the film explores the lives of these young Palestinian women as they enter the 21st century: their struggles between tradition and modernity, between invisibility and international media attention. The film also reveals the heartwarming collaboration between Palestinian women and Jewish women - a joint effort to achieve a just peace.

The Camera Project was launched in 2007 by B’Tselem, a Jerusalem based human rights organization. They began to distribute video cameras, teaching young Palestinian women how to technically operate the cameras. Over the last 4 years these courageous women, some as young as 17, have produced a stunning video chronicle of life under occupation. They risk attack, imprisonment and harassment for themselves and their families. Their footage has had an increasing impact in the Israeli and International media - and the army has attempted to silence them.  

The trailer gives a good idea of the structure and texture of the complete film. Footage capturing daily life is intercut with the women's footage of violence and harassment by Israeli soldiers and settlers. In the trailer we focus on Salam who is 19 and studying Journalism at a university in Ramallah.  She lives in Ni’lin, near the infamous separation wall. Through her bedroom window she filmed an Israeli soldier shooting his handcuffed and blindfolded prisoner at point blank range. Her footage caused a furor on Israeli and international TV, and led to the conviction of both the soldier and his superior officer. IN THE IMAGE will show the way Salam and the other courageous women in the Camera Project are working to change not only the balance of information in the conflict, but how they are perceived as Palestinians by the world.

We are welcomed into their private lives. We see a mother’s fears at her daughter’s activism, a fiance who wants his bride to stay home while she wants to keep filming. These are not the Palestinian terrorists we see on the news. They are not the stereotypes presented by media. They are modern young women living their lives under terrible adversity, who desire nothing more than peaceful co-existence. There are now more than 200 women in the Camera Project.

IN THE IMAGE is produced and directed by Judith Montell and Emmy Scharlatt. 

We’re raising money to edit the film. We have completed two trips to Israel this year and one in each of the previous two years. We are now translating interviews from Arabic, acquiring archival footage, and beginning work on a rough cut. We have raised $40,000 from foundations and donors. Now we need to fund editing. We will use the $20,000 from Kickstarter for this editing. (It will take an additional $100,000 to complete the film which we plan to raise from dedicated individuals and from foundations that fund final dollars needed.) We are hoping to have a fine cut by June 2012.

Please help us with whatever amount you can and recommend us to your friends.  We believe our film will give voice to a group of women who passionately want to bring an end to a conflict that has so denied them their rights as human beings.

Thank you for your support in whatever amount - and be sure and check out our gifts for you on the right.

Judy and Emmy