In the war of 1948 hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated. Israelis call it 'The War of Independence. Palestinians call it 'Nakba"'. The film examines one village- Tantura and why "Nakba" is taboo in Israeli society.
The tape-recorded words "erase it" take on new weight in the context of history and war. After the U.N decided to partition Palestine into two separate independent Jewish and Arab states, and the state of Israel was established in 1948, local hostilities escalated to regional war and hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated in its aftermath. Israelis know this as the War of Independence. Palestinians call it "The Nakba" (the Catastrophe).In the late 1990s, graduate student Teddy Katz researched a large-scale massacre that had allegedly occurred in the village of Tantura in 1948. His work later came under attack and his reputation was ruined, but 140 hours of audio testimonies remain.
Director Alon Schwarz revisits former Israeli soldiers of the Alexandroni Brigade and confronts them with Teddy's recorded audiotape interviews as well as visiting former Palestinian residents of Tantura in an effort to re-examine what happened in the village and explore why "The Nakba" is taboo in Israeli society. The now elderly ex-soldiers recall unsettling acts of war while disquietly pausing at points they either don't want to remember or won't speak of. Audio from Katz's 20-year-old interviews cuts through the silence of self-preservation and exposes the ways in which power, silencing, and protected narratives can sculpt history.The film provides a rare look at Israeli society's first-generation and how the country's founding myth has shaped reality for generations.The film brings never before seen archival footage from the war of 1948 alongside intimate interviews with ex-Israeli soldiers, Palestinian residents, and historians.
