This is Not a Movie
Yung Chang | Canada/Germany, 2019 | English/Arabic (English subtitles) | Documentary | 106m | DCP | IMDB | Distributor/Sales: Blue Ice Docs | Festival marketing sample: IDFA 2019
Description: Controversial veteran Beirut-based British print and television journalist Robert Fisk, a persistent critic of Israeli policy in the West Bank and the Middle East, is the subject of this profile. He was one of the first to report from the Sabra & Shatila refugee refugee camps following the 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians there by Christian militias, sent there by the IDF to clear it of Palestinian militants during the Lebanon war. He returns to the camp to meet some of the survivors he interviewed.
At an arms factory in Bosnia, he uncovers evidence that arms manufactured there are being supplied by the Saudis to al-Nusra fighters in Syria with NATO knowledge and acquiescence. On a visit to the West Bank he talks with a South African-born settler, Ramallah based Ha’aretz journalist Amira Haas and a Palestinian whose farm expropriation for a settlement he originally covered in a television documentary 25 years ago. Fisk also travels to Douma in Syria, a site of an alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime. This attack triggered a Western bombing response but Fisk reported he was unable to find evidence of a chemical attack. (These who have seen The Cave, filmed in the field hospital during that very attack may cringe at that.)
Fisk refutes accusations of antisemitism (most notably levelled by Alan Dershowitz), pro-Syrian regime bias and being unfair in his coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This documentary is peppered with some of the original television footage he produced.
Merits: Like its subject, This is Not a Movie is an intelligent, conscientious, thorough and challenging documentary that is certain to provoke controversy and debate.
Rating: Images of massacre victims.