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Recently exposed classified trial transcripts of the 1956 massacre by Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian village of Kafr Qasim interwoven with survivors' testimonies shed new light on unknown facts and troubling truths on the societal relations in Israel and Palestine.
From Ayelet Heller (Gaza's Strawberry Fields) and producer Osnat Trablesi (Gaza's Strawberry Fields, Gaza Sderot - Life in Spite of Everything, Divorce Denied, Powder, Jaffa, The Traffickers), The 1957 Transcripts, a cinematic montage, allows a glimpse into a history of divided narratives.
Kafr Qasim situated on the border between Israel and the West Bank lived under military rule between 1948 and 1966 with a curfew imposed every night, like all villages of the remaining Arab citizens of Israel after the 1948 Nakba. On the morning of October 29, 1956, when the villagers set out to work on the fields, they were not told that later that day the curfew would begin earlier than usual. Breaking the curfew carried a death sentence, and upon its earlier start, Israeli border patrol soldiers murdered 47 innocent Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The case was exposed by an Israeli journalist and heavy public pressure led to the soldiers being put on trial the following year. The 1957 Transcripts reenacts selected dialogues from the original trial transcripts that were only recently exposed.
Three narrative lines are intertwined like a tense legal drama, revealing the complex historical, political, and psychological reality that shaped and enabled the tragic event. The cinematic mosaic highlights the differences and conflicting narratives that exist until today between Jews and Arabs in this place.
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