BET HERUT: The End of The Beginning
Price: $265.00 Code: 2151 |
Produced and Directed by: Eran Preis and K.M. Winikur
2005, 53 mins
Purchase: $265 Classroom Rental: $125
On a Fulbright Fellowship, local filmmakers K.M. Winikur and Eran Preis traveled to Israel to shoot a one-hour documentary about a small socialist farming community, known as Moshav Bet Herut. Through the investigation of a tragic murder in Israel, BET HERUT: The End of The Beginning, weaves a complex story about the ending of an era in the state of Israel.
On a November night in 1985, in the Israeli cooperative village of Moshav Bet Herut, Nachi Ariel, the founder and ideologue of the Moshav, killed his retarded son and daughter-in-law before taking his own life. The tragedy was little-discussed as life continued on the Moshav. Fifteen years later, when Eran Preis and K.M. Winikur go to Moshav Bet Herut to explore the impact of Nachi's murder-suicide, they find the Moshav on the verge of economic collapse. Bet Herut and other Kibbutzim and Moshavim were once the ideological core of the new state of Israel, pioneering a dream of communal work and living and considered by many to be Israel's greatest gift to the world. By the year 2000, they were straining under the weight of global capitalism.
Nachi's death, the original focus of the documentary, becomes a metaphor for the end of this socialist community, and the closing of an era in the modern Israeli state. Raised on the Moshav, Preis has an intimate rapport with Moshav members, and the film provides a unique glimpse into life on these Kibbutzim and Moshavim.
The film asks the question, "is the dream of an ideal society over?" Or, is the death of the Moshav the end of the beginning?
2005, 53 mins
Purchase: $265 Classroom Rental: $125
On a Fulbright Fellowship, local filmmakers K.M. Winikur and Eran Preis traveled to Israel to shoot a one-hour documentary about a small socialist farming community, known as Moshav Bet Herut. Through the investigation of a tragic murder in Israel, BET HERUT: The End of The Beginning, weaves a complex story about the ending of an era in the state of Israel.
On a November night in 1985, in the Israeli cooperative village of Moshav Bet Herut, Nachi Ariel, the founder and ideologue of the Moshav, killed his retarded son and daughter-in-law before taking his own life. The tragedy was little-discussed as life continued on the Moshav. Fifteen years later, when Eran Preis and K.M. Winikur go to Moshav Bet Herut to explore the impact of Nachi's murder-suicide, they find the Moshav on the verge of economic collapse. Bet Herut and other Kibbutzim and Moshavim were once the ideological core of the new state of Israel, pioneering a dream of communal work and living and considered by many to be Israel's greatest gift to the world. By the year 2000, they were straining under the weight of global capitalism.
Nachi's death, the original focus of the documentary, becomes a metaphor for the end of this socialist community, and the closing of an era in the modern Israeli state. Raised on the Moshav, Preis has an intimate rapport with Moshav members, and the film provides a unique glimpse into life on these Kibbutzim and Moshavim.
The film asks the question, "is the dream of an ideal society over?" Or, is the death of the Moshav the end of the beginning?