![]() “Do you believe gay Palestinians should be granted asylum in Israel?” one man wanted to know. ![]() But they asked some tough questions, too. The audience applauded loudly as the credits rolled, giving Mozer and writer-producer Adam Rosner a warm welcome as they stepped up for a post-screening Q&A hosted by the Other Israel Film Festival. But the choice to leave is bitter for Louie, who says, “I want to breathe my culture, my land. The Tel Aviv law clinic from which he seeks legal help puts him in touch with Abdu, an outspoken gay Palestinian from Ramallah who aptly sums up their double-edged situation: “The Palestinians won’t accept us because we are gay, and the Israelis won’t accept us because we are Palestinians without permits.” Eventually, both men are granted asylum in a European country, and they leave their homeland behind for good. ![]() Louie escapes to Tel Aviv, where he ekes out a life taking odd jobs and dodging Israeli police. “The Invisible Men” tells the story of Louie, a gay Palestinian forced to flee the West Bank when his father attacks him with a knife after learning of his sexual orientation. This would be my first time seeing the movie, and I was fully prepared to chalk it up to another Israeli attempt to put a progressive face on a brutal occupation.īut within the first few seconds of the documentary, director and narrator Yariv Mozer equated Israel’s policy of deporting gay Palestinians to the Occupied Territories with “sending them to certain death.” He bemoaned the fact that these men, many of whom sneak into Tel Aviv seeking refuge from violently homophobic families, are then “constantly hunted” in Israel as “illegals.” As the film went on to depict checkpoints, barriers, and the thousand indignities visited upon Palestinians every day, it became increasingly hard to see how this film could rightly be accused of pinkwashing. Back in August, I’d seen the Israeli documentary accused of pinkwashing when it screened at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, and the film endured similar charges in San Francisco in June. As the first frame of “The Invisible Men” flashed across the big screen Friday at New York’s Cinema Theater, I steeled myself for the worst.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |