BALAGAN

Three Israeli-Palestinian actors stage an explosive play about Jewish trauma. "Arbeit Macht Frei" challenges given ideas about the Holocaust and the Israel-Palestine conflict through powerful, excessive and disturbing performances. In a country at war, the actors take great personal risk. In his breakthrough film, Andres Veiel combines sequences of the highly acclaimed as well as controversial play with an investigation of the lives of the actors.

Madi Maayan, the daughter of a Jewish-Czech Holocaust survivor, struggles with what she calls "the dictatorship of remembering" through her "blasphemous" and "provocative" work: "the Holocaust is the new religion", she says, "It is the opium of the masses in Israel." Moni Yusef, a religiously observant Jew, is torn between his religious beliefs and his work as an actor. His family is worried because he is working together with a Palestinian. Khaled Abu Ali who previously knew nothing about the Shoah deals with the Holocaust for the first time in the preparation of the play. He is seen as a traitor by his friends who don't understand how he can be interested in the suffering of a people responsible for their own suffering. In Hebrew "Balagan" means chaos in the head and stomach. This is a film about Israel's self-infecting wound.

Awards: Peace Film Award, Berlin 1994; Protestant Jury Film of the Month May 1994; German Film Award in Silver 1994; IFFS Hauptpreis 1994; Otto Sprenger Award 1994

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