Interview with "Children of Peace" director Maayan Schwartz

Maayan Schwartz’s film Children of Peace was screened at DocAviv (Tel Aviv’s annual documentary film festival) on May 27, 2022.

In July, the film also had a private screening for the people of the village at the Pluralistic Spiritual Community Center.

He was interviewed for the website by Judy Halper of the Communications and Development Office.

This is your first documentary, correct?

This is my first full length film. Officially, my first film was a student film called My Friend Yaniv, which was also screened in Wahat al Salam/Neve Shalom and it was a great experience to screen it here.

This was a very personal film, and one that must have been complicated to make. Why did you choose this subject?

I didn’t choose the subject; it chose me. (He laughs). I have wanted to make a film about Wahat al Salam/Neve Shalom for decades (Maayan is 35). Growing up in the village, we talked to filmmakers all the time. When I was in the 10th grade, two of them – I still remember their first names, Mark and Glen – saw that I was interested in film and told me to make a film about the village, and they even sent me a package of old film equipment. So I credit them with the idea, even though it took me twenty years to make it.

What happened in those 20 years that led up to the film?

I went to high school outside of the village by that time, and the center of my life was elsewhere. It’s a regret I carry with me, that I stopped growing up with my friends, that we grew apart. They went to study at an Arab school in the area, I went to a Jewish regional school. That split seemed crude and artificial. I saw them maybe once a week; less as time went on.

That separation — while you are developing your identity — is when gaps emerge. I think that’s one of the things I tried to show in the film. The longing for my friends and longing for that place where I grew up. I had to ask: ‘What are my relations to this place, Wahat al Salam/Neve Shalom? It was something I constantly grappled with, and one day I just said: ‘I’m going to make that film.’

I wanted to know: Do my friends think and feel the same way as I do? What did they think about me? I’ll ask them, and if I get a film out of it, I’ll profit doubly.

I saw that quite a few of your cohort agreed to speak with you on camera, not just one or two.

I would have liked to include three times as many! But I couldn’t for many reasons, most of them logistic- and production-related. I really appreciate the ones who have agreed to participate in the film. They really helped me understand more about myself and about this place we grew up in.

I was impressed that those in the film really opened their hearts and spoke honestly. Do you think the fact that you are one of the “children of peace” brought this out and helped the film succeed?

For sure the fact I was from the village helped them feel comfortable. No other person would have been able to make this particular film. I can tell you that hundreds of films and news items were made about WASNS over the years. To make my own film, I dived into the archives and watched dozens. It felt as though they were all the same film, made over and over again. The same questions and images, looking in through an outside lens. I wanted to break that mold, to deal with the things that interest me, personally – to create a film in which viewers could not predict the ending from the initial two-dimensional setup.

Some people even talked to you like you were a kid again.

It was important that the communication remain informal, that I was also a figure in the film, albeit one behind the camera. Since I was also the one creating the film, it was important to show that connection, that meeting between me and the figures speaking on camera.

I felt that connection again when the film was screened at the village. It was such a wonderful experience. Sitting and watching the film with my friends’ parents, my teachers and people I grew up with. So many different reactions. Everyone gave me their opinion; some were even disappointed because they expected to see a different film. It is only normal, and I totally respect that. The goal was to start a discussion; not to say what I think is right. These topics are so sensitive and everyone is living live them from a different point of view. This incredibly diverse range of opinions is the complexity but also the uniqueness and strength of this village. And this is what I was aiming to show in my film: how this small community deals with such a wide range of opinions and still manages to live together under all circumstances.

It was quite amazing to see clips of Shireen as a girl and Shireen on camera now. (Many of the interviewees seem to have changed little, outside of facial hair on the men. Shireen, in the clips, is a bold girl with wild hair, eager to say her piece. Today’s Shireen is dressed modestly and speaks with measured assurance.)

Shireen is not just a character in the film, she might be the central figure. Shireen has this charisma – she wins you over. When I was editing, I found this clarity in the way she spoke and described things. As the first Arab girl to grew up in this village she was filmed a lot. In the film, you can sort of see her grow from a girl to a woman in front of your eyes. That is actually true of all of the characters. Those tapes were gold that was left to us. I would love to see them transferred to a digital format and preserved in a proper archive.

Other people in the film had some pretty harsh things to say.

I wanted to show all the opinions. I didn’t censor anything. I edited my footage to fit the arc of the film, but I tried very hard to show each person speaking their truth. And I went to each one and showed them the film to get their okay before continuing.

You and your relation to the village are in integral part of the film, and the one time you talk, we sense a lot of ambivalence.

Some of that ambivalence is connected to the fact that this is a small place, with small place’s dilemmas, like any other such place.

But I also believe that a place like this necessarily acquires a large amount of ambivalence among its residents. There was a large dose of naivety in our parents’ generation. It was that naivety that enabled this place to exist, despite the unlivable conditions and really hard work it took to get it up and going.

Everyone who came here thought they were coming to ‘live in peace’ but instead they had to deal with conflict all the time. WASNS is not a bubble in some ‘real world’ - it is reality. In Israel, you can live in a homogenous place or neighborhood and never meet people who are not just like you. Here, you interact daily with the ’others,’ and for better or worse, that creates a complex situation.

I feel that there is a gap between our parents’ generation and ours – one that they wouldn’t understand. It was the people who grew up here who told me things like, ‘I couldn’t have put it better,’ or ‘thanks for making a film about my life.’ And ‘No one can really understand it’.

The other side of that coin is that children who grow up in that climate have healthy skepticism. They are able to grasp complexity and to see things in shades other than black and white. By moving to WASNS, I am imposing on my children a life that is not so simple. I am asking myself what kind of people I want them to grow up to be.

Your film was selected for DocAviv. What was that like?

It was a bit like a wedding: overwhelming. But the response was much greater than we expected. People liked it and connected to it, which was an emotional experience for me. At the end, the interviewees in the film who had come to the screening went up on stage and got an ovation.
In: You and your family now live at Neve Shalom.

In the past few years, there has been a social awakening that is really exciting. Just recently, I went to a birthday party; the girl had invited the entire village, not just classmates. That revived a tradition we had as kids, and it gave me the feeling that I had a warm enveloping community around me.

This village is something especially strong that lives in everyone who grew up here. It shapes a person to grow up in a really specific situation that is so unique in the country. To make the film, I had to stand to one the side, to take stock of what we went through, as well as observing own my part. I was trying to show to those outside the village our uncommon experience, without judgement and with a people-centered lens. And I show how the conflict – bloody, violent and insufferable — was drilled into us from age 0 and permeated our reality.

When I think about what is preferable, there is no doubt that living together, even when there is no agreement, is preferable over every second of this conflict. But we must not stop there! We need to continue to seek together for ways in which we can step towards ending this ongoing war and occupation. My hope is that this film may help people remember that no one is going anywhere and that we need to make the first step. This village is a step. In order to stop fighting you need to first try to listen.

Children of Peace was screened in DocAviv and at Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom, and it is now on its way to international festivals. In the future, it will be available on public television.