Award-Winning Graduate Documentary Screened in Campus

An award-winning Palestinian documentary, “The Wanted 18,” directed by Birzeit University graduate Amer Shomali and Canadian filmaker Paul Cowan was honored during a film screening at campus on April 11, 2016.The film is a tribute to the ingenuity and power of grassroots activism, through a combination of stop-motion animation, interviews, drawings and archival material.The Wanted 18 received an award for best documentary in the Arab World at Abu Dhabi Film Festival, the Golden Tanit Award for best documentary film at the Carthage Film Festival, and Traverse City Film Festival’s best documentary award.“It is evident that we are training students to work at the highest levels demanded by the world’s creative minds in the performing arts and entertainment arenas,”  Vice President for Communication and Development Ghassan Khatib said. “Former students like Shomali must be honored because they exemplify our hopes and dreams to see our students reach high-level positions locally and internationally.”The Wanted 18 highlights an absurdist footnote in the Palestinian tragedy, telling the true story of a Palestinian committee in the town of Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, that purchased a herd of cows from a friendly kibbutz owner and used them in a bid to undermine Israeli control. It was a step towards self-sufficiency beset by problems: Palestinians are not a cow-rearing people, which accounts for some agricultural hiccups along the way, and the Israeli authorities did not look kindly even on the smallest gestures of independence – the cows were declared “dangerous for the security of the state of Israel” and became fugitives from the law.