Eyeless in Gaza Online Launch
Producer Robert Magid recently returned to Australia from showing his film Eyeless in Gaza in Los Angeles and New York before its official Australian launch this month.
While the film was included as part of the Australian Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) and Hong Kong International Jewish Film Festival last year, it will be have a red carpet premiere in Sydney this week prior to its release via iTunes, Amazon and YouTube on demand. The trailer has already been viewed over 500,000 times.
The documentary explores how skewed coverage of the conflict informed international public opinion of the conflict, largely painting Israel as the aggressor, and why the media failed to tell both sides of the story.
Rather than an investigative report by the media, this is an investigative report of the media.
Robert Magid
Through interviews with Israeli and Palestinian combatants and civilians, Hamas leaders, UN Officials, analysts and journalists on the ground during the Israeli-Gaza conflict of 2014, its director Martin Himel arrives at some troubling conclusions.
Himel is a former Jerusalem producer for the American ABC News and Middle East Bureau Chief and Correspondent for three major North American television networks. He has covered many of the key political events of the last four decades, including the Oslo Peace process, the first and second Gulf Wars, the Second Intifada and the Lebanon war.
“The JIFF screenings in Melbourne and Sydney were pretty full and audiences at the Q&A sessions were animated and keen to spread the word” Magid told J-Wire.
“I made this movie because the war in Gaza is a stage for dramatic media presentation. The media is not immune to what takes place in front of them and while seeing objectivity as a standard they invariably get sucked in and become participants rather than reporters.
“”They’re calling it a massacre. “ Children and civilians comprised the vast majority of the 200 killed.” “Israel is targeting… hospitals.” “
“These quotes come directly from international media reports on the 2014 Gaza War. All of them are incorrect, yet they were used to create the narrative that the world, to a great extent, accepted. It was a narrative that saw Israel as the aggressor” he said.
Eyeless in Gaza achieves its aim of highlighting the problematic way that events connected to Israel are portrayed and makes for compelling viewing.
Magid said he had no immediate plans to make more films and said this one was more than a labour of love.
