HAMAS-BEHIND THE MASK

BISHARI FILM PRODUCTIONS

DIRECTED BY: Shelley Saywell

PRODUCERS:  Shelley Saywell / Deborah Parks

 

This one-hour journalistic exploration by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Shelley Saywell takes the viewer beyond the headlines and into the daunting, determined minds and hearts of Hamas, a movement formed in 1987 with one declared aim – to destroy the hard-won New State of Israel through Jihad: through applied resistance to Israel’s occupation of what Palestinians perceived – and perceive – as their ancestral land.

 

In Saywell’s 'Behind the Mask' there are no clearly identifiable monsters: only competing claimants to a harshly, passionately contested strip of land. Viewers may find themselves shedding tears for all those claimants, here: both hopeful Jewish Israelis who have seen those hopes of peace and security in the promised land dashed, and Palestinians who feel marginalized, disenfranchised and betrayed.