Dear Friends and Comrades,
BDS South Africa, its staff and board of advisors, warmly welcome the African premiere of the new documentary film,"Village Under the Forest", and wish all the best to its directors, Mark Kaplan and Heidi Grunebaum. You can view the trailer of this must-watch documentary (which is being screened at the 15th Encounters Documentary Film Festival) here:
www.villageunderforest.com
The film, "Village Under The Forest", explores, amongst other things, the role of the controversial Israeli-parastatal, the
Jewish National Fund (JNF), in building a forest (the "
South Africa Forest") over the Israeli-destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya (destroyed by Israeli forces in 1948, during the Palestinian "
Nakba"). The JNF is celebrated by Israel and its supporters for its forest building work, however,
the JNF is also criticized by human rights activists for its involvement in the Israeli oppression and "ethnic-cleansing" against the indigenous Palestinian people, and specifically the construction of forests above Israeli-destroyed Palestinian villages in an attempt to erase all traces of Palestinian life. "Village Under the Forest", while explosive in content, is at its heart, a moving and human story (
click here for a recent Mail&Guardian newspaper review).
"Village Under the Forest" is directed by the
Emmy-award winning South African filmmaker, Mark Kaplan and is written and narrated by Cape Town based
Jewish scholar and author Heidi Grunebaum. Grunebaum had visited the "South Africa Forest" in Israel in the mid-1980s but when she discovered the ruined Palestinian village of Lubya beneath South Africa Forest, she says,
“it felt like the rug being pulled out from under my feet. I knew I’d been there before, but I’d had absolutely no understanding or ability to imagine then that my trees were erasing the presence of [the Palestinian] people who had lived there and been forcibly removed [by Israel]...the quiet violence of using trees to hide something felt like a deception.” The film has been funded by, amongst others, Cordaid based in the Netherlands, Norway's Karibu Foundation and South Africa's National Film and Video Foundation.
"Village Under The Forest" opened last night to a sold out Cape Town Encounters Film Festival premiere and will now be screened at the Bioscope Theater in Johannesburg on Saturday (15 June at 8pm) also as part of the Encounters Film Festival (for more information or to purchase tickets click here: http://tinyurl.com/outy48w). For preview copies of the film or to arrange screenings of this movie in your community, organization, union, school or university contact Kevin Kriedemann: kevin@kevinlikes.com.
--------------------TAKE ACTION - JOIN CALL FOR SOUTH AFRICA TO DISSOCIATE FROM ISRAEL'S "SA FOREST"
The Jewish National Fund (JNF), an Israeli-parastatal complicit in human rights abuses against the indigenous Palestinian people (which also tries to operate as a charity in South Africa) has come under
increasing protest by the international
boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel movement for its involvement in the Israeli
displacement, forced removals and oppression of the indigenous Palestinian people. Recently, after months of nationwide protests,
South Africa's largest toy retailer, "Reggies", terminated its charity relationship with the JNF.
The JNF together with the Israeli government, has named the forest built above the destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya, "South Africa Forest", join us in calling on South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) and the South African government to officially dissociate from and demand that Israel and the JNF do not use South Africa's good name for the forest above Lubya (under which, literally, lie the remains of destroyed Palestinian homes).
Permission may have been granted to Israel in the 1980s by
Apartheid South Africa, however, given South Africa's painful history of forced removals (which have been compared, by DIRCO itself, to current day Israeli practices, see:
http://tinyurl.com/pm9lmq3), the Group Areas Act and other apartheid policies (which, again, DIRCO itself has compared to Israel, see:
http://tinyurl.com/mvwcnrd) together with South Africa's deep solidarity and support for the Palestinian people (and their progressive Israeli allies), post-1994
Democratic South Africa cannot be associated with such Israeli destruction and displacement.
Sign and spread the Avaaz petition to the South African Government here: www.avaaz.org/en/petition/South_Africa_Dissociate_from_Israels_JNF
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