Between the Lines, a 2001 award-winning documentary film by Yifat Kedar about Amira Hass, the only Israeli journalist living in the Occupied Territories, will be screened as part of the 2004 Maine Jewish Film Festival at 7 p.m. Sunday, March 14, in the Keck Classroom (G52) of Pettengill Hall. A facilitated discussion with the filmmaker will follow the 58-minute screening (in Hebrew and Arabic, with English subtitles), and the public is invited to attend free of charge.

Interested in reporting the truth, the Jerusalem-born Hass writes for the daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, from her home in Ramallah, 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Filmmaker Yifat Kedar documents the dangerous and often lonely life of this courageous woman.

Hass is the only child of a mother who survived the Holocaust and is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the Territories since 1991. Originally produced for Israeli television, the film follows her for two years, beginning in 1999, when there was a period of optimism and euphoria in Israel. The worsening political situation affects her daily life as well as the lives of those she covers. Tanks pass her apartment and bombing disturbs her sleep, but she stays to live among the Palestinians and to report from the inside.

“Even if you don’t agree with her, it is hard not to admire the courage of this solitary, brave, and tenacious woman who attempts to share her perspective about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict under dangerous and difficult conditions,” writes Sheera LaBelle in a review essay for the 2004 Maine Jewish Film Festival program.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ senior Smadar Bakovic of Neve Illan, Israel, will introduce the film and lead a discussion afterwards. The public is invited to attend the screening, sponsored by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Hillel, free of charge.

This internationally recognized film (in Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles) has won multiple prizes, including audience awards for best film at the San Francisco and Paris international film festivals. “Promises,” wrote New York Times film critic Julie Salomon, “demonstrates the unusual power of thoughtful, subjective filmmaking.”

Produced and directed by Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg, the 106-minute film presents seven children between the ages of 9 and 13, an age group that rarely has the opportunity to speak for itself. The children are neither as self-conscious as teenagers nor as polite as adults. They speak directly, without self-censorship, and as “children of war” are far more amusing than an audience might expect. The film captures each child’s unique idiosyncratic style of communication.

Mirrors of their culture and spokespersons for future generations of Israelis and Palestinians, the children are acutely aware of the political reality that surrounds them. Their freshness of expression contrasts the entrenched and often embittered opinions of adults. These seven children live in and around Jerusalem. Though only 20 minutes apart, they exist in completely different worlds.

A native of South Africa, filmmaker Shapiro grew up in Berkeley, Calif., studied history and theater at Tufts University and hosts the award-winning travel series Lonely Planet. Born in Boston, Goldberg grew up outside of Jerusalem and studied filmmaking at New York University. He worked as a television journalist during the Intifada.