Thursday, January 16, 2014

Write on for Israel Student Documentaries

Write on for Israel, affectionately called WOFI is a program launched by Bluestar to help High School students explore their relationship with our land and our people. The culmination of months of study is a trip to Israel, and a documentary produced by the students themselves.

Check out the films produced by last year's class of teen participants  at Write On For Israel/San Francisco. The descriptions were written by the students, as well.

Too Thin is No longer In



70 million people worldwide are affected by eating disorders. as teenage girls, we see this affecting our society every day. We feel the pressure to look like the girls on TV, in movies, and in magazines. From a young age, girls are manipulated through the media to believe that thin is beautiful. Adi Barkan is an Israeli fashion photographer and model agent who is trying to change the way the media portrays women. He hopes that through his legislation, we can change the way society perceives beauty. We hope this movie inspires you all to join in our efforts to spread awareness of the media so that we can make a change.

ReWalk :An Israeli Miracle



We made this documentary to show how Israel is not only the conflict. We want to show the spirit of Israelis and how they seek to accomplish the impossible. To show how much this small country has contributed to the world, with numerous devices such as the pill cam, drip irrigation, and the iron dome. ReWalk is just another one of the innovations to come from Israel.

Returning home: A Jerusalem Story



Jerusalem was the original capital of the kingdom of Israel in the time of the first and second temple, and Jews have maintained a small but continuous presence in the Old City of Jerusalem for the past 2000 years. This film tells the little known story of the Jewish families who had lived in the Old City peacefully for generations prior to being besieged, forcibly evicted from their homes and taken prisoner of war by the Arab Legion in 1948 after the state of Israel was declared by the United Nations. The film follows the story of these Jewish refugees until they were able to return to their homes 19 years later after Israeli forces liberated the Old City during the Six Day War in 1967. My documentary group and I were privileged to spend many hours interviewing these survivors during our visit to Israel this summer. We learned the unique story of their return and rebuilding of the Old City of Jerusalem and hope to share it with you.

LGBTQ Life in Israel: A Progressing Journey




Our goals for this film were to explore the challenges and successes of the LGBTQ community while also investigating the new idea of pinkwashing. Pinkwashing is a concept that Israel is using their gay rights to cover up other possible controversial human rights abuses. We became interested in making this film because of all the new exciting progress occurring in the United States around LGBTQ rights such as same sex marriage. While, thinking about America's gay rights movement we began to wonder what gay life was like in Israel with its religious influence and its location.

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