Tantura

In May 1948, shortly after the outbreak of the Arab–Israeli War, the Palestinian village Tantura is occupied by Israeli forces. In the 1990s, Israeli student Teddy Katz submitted a thesis based on witness testimonies from both Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. They claim the military was responsible for a civilian massacre in Tantura, and this proves highly controversial in Israel. Katz’s degree is revoked and the top-graded thesis is removed from the university’s library.

Having gotten access to Katz’s audio testimonies, director Alon Schwarz examines the event – a small piece in the long-standing and impossibly complicated conflict between Israel and Palestine, but one that has significant implications in the fight for the official narrative. As the film’s opening points out: What Israelis call the War of Independence, Palestinians view as a part of Al-Nakba – “the catastrophe”. Schwarz’s film portrays the battle over which version of truth should prevail when history is written.