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Interview with the film director Nicolas Wadimoff
The work of director, producer and founder of the AKKA Films, Nicolas Wadimoff, is represented by the film Peace Agreement: L´Accord, which Wadimoff co-directed with journalist Béatrice Guelpa. The document released in 2005 reveals us the fascinating story behind the Geneva Initiative set up in 2003 by a group of seven very different individuals – three Israelis, three Palestinians and one Swiss – united by their dedication to achieve peace in the Middle East.
• Why did you decide to get in charge with the theme of Palestine and Israel?
For a long time we have been involved in this theme. I, as a filmmaker, have made three films about the region. And Béatrice as a journalist has covered the second Intifada since September 2000. Actually, Jerusalem is the place where we met in 1998. Béatrice was doing a report for a newsmagazine called l'Hebdo about war and cinema. She was following me in Israel and Palestine, meeting other filmmakers.
At that time, the situation was not as bad as now. It was in the middle of the Oslo Agreement time. Palestinian authority was responsible for some of the occupied territories. We discovered a region where people were able to live beside each other. Settlers were doing rock concert in Ramallah, Palestinian families were going for picnic on Tel Aviv beach. The Palestinians were building something, even if it was only a small path to Independence. This period is now called "The Golden Age", by Palestinians, and when this Geneva Initiative came on the media late 2003, it was this kind of memories that came up. That's why we decided to follow this story.
• Are you directly involved in the Swiss initiative?
We are not. When we heard about this Initiative, we decided to make a film. We took contact with the foreign ministry in order to be able to follow there meetings and the preparation of the ceremony of the first December in Geneva. They allowed us to be there. But very quickly, the film took another direction. L'Accord is the story of three Israelis and three Palestinians who decided to sign the Initiative.
• Do you still believe a ray of hope is gleaming?
We are not very optimistic. Let's see what happens after the disengagement of Gaza. But we should not be focused only on what has happened in Gaza. We must also look at events in the rest of the West Bank in term of settlements!
• What was your impression of ordinary people’s lives from both sides of the Wall?
On the Palestinian side, the impression is absolute despair. This wall is cutting their earth into pieces, turning their field into battlefield, taking some of their sun, wind... On the Israeli side, we got the impression that only a few Israelis actually saw the wall. A majority of them want this wall because they feel it can protect them from some attacks, but they have no idea of what it causes on the other side. Or they don't care. For us the wall was like an actor who had not been invited on the shooting, who comes again and again. It is central piece of this film, it is always somewhere behind, because it breaks the hope of the Initiative. With a wall in the middle, the two-state solution is a joke. The wall does not let the space for a Palestinian state.
• Were there risky moments while shooting the film?
No. We knew the area quite well and were used to such situations. We did not take any useless risks.
• Was it difficult for you to judge which shots could be cut?
Yes. Because we filmed during more than a year and so we had a lot of material – almost 200 hours of rushes. At the beginning we thought that we would do a film on the Initiative itself, so we filmed Alexis Keller, the initiator of the Accord, the Swiss foreign ministry, etc... But at the end we decided to focus on what would happen to six persons who were promoting the accord in Israel and Palestine.
Our aim is to show how difficult it is to decide to make peace, what kind of concrete obstacles you meet when you decide to get involved in this matter, the concessions. We also want to show that if there is a solution, one day, it is because people like the ones we followed, are still convinced that peace is a state of spirit and not a piece of paper...
• How does this film relate to your early production featuring Jewish community in Yemen or the story about the young Israeli-Arab boxer?
Let's say that the question of "how to live together?" is a crucial point in my cinematography. And the way the minorities live among a society is also a question that has led my work. Not only in Palestine and in Israel, but that area is doubtless a place where all those questions have deep meaning.
• What are the newest trends of the Swiss initiative? Was it a vainly attempt to find a solution?
We think that every attempt is never vain. It was quite courageous for the new Swiss foreign ministry Calmy-Rey to assist this Initiative. They were a lot of opposition even in Switzerland. Some people were thinking that the Swiss diplomacy should have been quite and grey as it was always. For Calmy-Rey, neutrality is not indifference. This Initiative as we understood had two different aims: convince the local people. And this has obviously failed. But also be a kind of stone for the two-state solution. In the diplomatic circle, the Geneva Initiative is certainly associated now with this two-state solution. As Avraham Burg told in may 2004 in Bern: Geneva will ever be on the map. But the question is: is the two-state solution still a realistic solution?
