“Do Younger Israelis Care at All About This History?”: Alon Schwarz on His Sundance-Debuting Doc Tantura

Alon Schwarz’s Tantura takes its title from a particular Palestinian village that was depopulated – by any means necessary, including through a still-contested massacre of civilians – during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence (aka “Al Nakba,” the Catastrophe, if you hail from the occupied side). Yet the doc is less a history lesson than a deep-dive investigation into the stories a nation chooses to tell about itself. Schwarz’s (Aida’s Secrets) own story began when he got access to over 100 hours of shockingly candid audiotaped interviews that the (government and academia-silenced) researcher Teddy Katz conducted decades ago with former soldiers of the Alexandroni Brigade (as well as with Palestinian witnesses to their potential war crimes in Tantura). Schwarz then continued down a rabbit hole that includes his own contemporary on-camera interviews with the now-frail Katz, and with many of these last remaining soldiers as they listen back to their unguarded testimonies and subsequently come to terms, dismiss, or even laugh off chilling admissions that this generation of Holocaust survivors would, rather ironically, now prefer to forever forget. Prior to the film’s January 20th world premiere in the World Cinema Documentary Competition section of this year’s online Sundance, Filmmaker caught up with the director (and brother of longtime Sundance vet Shaul Schwarz) to learn all about his country’s My Lai-reminiscent incident, and whether the untwisting of truth could ever lead to actual reconciliation.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.