5 Broken Cameras

2011, Emad Burnat & Guy Davidi, 95 minutes, Hebrew & Arabic

There are five cameras, each with a story of their own. When his fourth son, Gibreel, is born in 2005, self-taught Palestinian cameraman Emad Burnat gets his first camera. At the same time in his village of Bil’in, a separation barrier is being built, and the villagers begin to resist this development. For the next few years, Burnat films their non-violent struggle while recording his son’s childhood. Very soon, these events begin to affect his family and his home life. Daily arrests, violent attacks, bulldozers knocking down olive trees, night raids, and even death weigh heavily on the village. Many of his friends and brothers are arrested or shot. Burnat goes through camera after camera as they are destroyed while documenting these events. Eventually, Burnat teams up with Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi, and together they piece together a documentary from Burnat’s five broken cameras.

Emad Burnat is a Palestinian freelance cameraman. His experience includes work for several media outlets, including Al Jazeera and Reuters. He has filmed for many documentaries, such as Bil’in Habibti, Palestine Kids, Open Close, and Interrupted Streams.

Guy Davidi is an Israeli documentary filmmaker and cinema instructor. He has been directing, shooting, and editing films since he was sixteen. As a cameraman, he shot films such as Journal d’une Orange, Aller Simple for TV channel France 3. His first feature-length film as a director, Interrupted Streams, was presented at the Cinema South Festival and the Jerusalem Film Festival.