AWARDS

WINNER Bronze Award, Worldfest-Flagstaff
WINNER Second Prize for Broadcast Documentary: Israel, International Jewish Video Competition

SELECTED SCREENINGS

Sao Paulo Jewish Film Festival
Haifa International Film Festival
Docs for Sale, Amsterdam
Worldfest Houston International Film
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
Museum of Jewish Heritage
Hamptons International Film Festival
Columbus International Film and Video Festival
Jewishfilm.2002

Kibbutz Megiddo was founded in 1949 by a group of Holocaust survivors, whose children and grandchildren still maintain the land. Creation of the kibbutz came, however, at the expense of local Arab villagers, whose land -a village then called Lejun- was confiscated. Locals were displaced from their homes, their farms and their livelihoods.

Director Ilan Yagoda first arrived at Kibbutz Megiddo in 1977 as part of his military service and discovered that his mother had been one of the cooperative's original group of refugee settlers. Rain 1949 chronicals his return visit 17 years later and offers an interesting and reasonably balanced look at how locals on both sides view the conflict.

Yagoda interviews numerous kibbutz residents, all of whom are passionate about the land that serves as their home. Many are sensitive to the fact that others were displaced for their benefit. Nobody on the kibbutz denies the history of the place, but many seem to have emotionally detached themselves from it, for their own mental well-being as residents with no plans to leave.

One particularly poignant moment -the most powerful sign that the place's history has not been forgotten- has a kibbutz resident comparing the Arab expulsion from the land to Germans driving Jews from their homes across Eastern Europe.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

"Rain 1949 is one of those disturbing documentaries that needs to be seen...

"Rain 1949 is a catharsis of sorts, symbolized by the torrential rains of 1949 which could never quite wash away the past: neither the past of the Arabs who fled during the War of Independence, nor the past of the Holocaust survivors who came to make new lives on the land so recently -and from the standpoint of the Arabs, only temporarily- vacated.

- Greer Fay Cashman, The Jerusalem Post

DOWNLOADS

Jerusalem Post Review (PDF).

Home Use DVD:
$29.95

Does not include Classroom or Library Use Rights or Public Performance Rights. More Information

Classroom/Library Use DVD: $195

Does not include Public Performance Rights. More Information

Digital Site Licensing (DSL) available - Contact us

Step down pricing for K-12 & public libraries may be available - Contact us

Arrange a screening - Contact us

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Rain 1949

1998, Israel, 52 minutes
Color
Hebrew, Arabic, French and English with English subtitles
Directed by Ilan Yagoda

Buy Now

Public Exhibition formats: Beta, DVD


 

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