Students from AMIT Eliraz Jr. and Sr. High School for boys in Petach Tikva participated in the “Blink of the Eye” project, a social cinema project for youth sponsored by the Culture Department of the US Embassy. The final projects were screened this week at a festive event at the International Student Film Festival at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.
The students took part in a six-month course, in which they participated in professional photography workshops throughout the year together with professionals from the Department of Film at Tel Aviv University. At the beginning of the course, each student introduced himself in the method which is today’s norm -through “selfies”. After a month, they turned the camera outwards, and were instructed to introduce themselves from another angle. For this purpose, they were asked to open a hidden space that would serve as an image that reveals their inner world and tells the story of their culture and community.
As part of the project, the students photographed personal videos utilizing the one-shot technique, using only their smartphones. Each participant filmed the opening of a hidden space: one opened the door of his room, the other his bag, the window or cabinet – and by doing so, opened his heart. What is revealed to the viewers is a personal place or experience of each student, along with the story of his family, community and culture, and together the videos create a colorful mosaic of identities and cultures. All with the help of a picture and sound taken in one shot, like a human glance that begins and ends with the blink of an eye.
Aviv Hordi, a 16-year-old student at the AMIT Eliraz Yeshiva, was one of four students from across the country to be chosen to display his video clip at the International Student Film Festival last week. In his video clip, the viewer is brought into the Bet Midrash at the school, a bag is opened, revealing a sweatshirt with a logo that for Aviv, symbolizes Zionism and his homeland, and especially his aspirations for the next few years. Aviv commented in an interview on Channel 2, “The project was a lot of fun, because the idea behind the project is not to make a movie, but to show your perspective”.
The students who participated in the project were diverse – from a group of Bedouin girls from the village of Abu Talul in the Negev, to the AMIT Eliraz yeshiva students in Petach Tikva; from a group of mixed Jewish and Arab students from Haifa to Druze girls from the Yarka School of Science and Leadership. This project promotes multiculturalism and personal and community empowerment through art. Through the story and the personal experience of each participant, there was a fascinating process of creative self-expression and strengthening of the personal and communal identity of each one of the youth who took part in the project.
Photo: AMIT Eliraz students pictured with Jackie Slaski, AMIT Eliraz English coordinator who led the project and Jonathan Berger, culture attaché of the American Embassy (R) and Sima Hasson from the AMIT Network (L)
