This is a Hybrid Event, meaning you can attend virtually via Zoom or, in person, at the Palestine Museum US, in Woodbridge, CT, USA. Please chose the registration method that is appropriate to your attendance preference below.
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Please click here to attend in person at Palestine Museum US in Woodbridge, CT, USA
This event starts at 3:00 PM US EDT; 10:00 PM Palestine time
The screening will be followed by Q&A discussions with film director Monika Borgmann
About the Film
1 Hour, 39 Minutes, German, Arabic with English Subtitles.
The murderers of Sabra and Shatila went about their bloody business for three days and two nights, from 16 to 18 September 1982. When they had finished, they had slain between 1,000 and 3,000 Palestinian civilians – most of them women, children and the elderly. The exact number of victims, dead or missing, is still not known today. Many of the perpetrators were members of the “Forces Libanaises” – a Christian militia allied to Israel. The massacre was devised and planned by the Israeli army which, at the time, was under the command of Ariel Sharon.
Back in 1982, the world’s press was deeply shocked by this attack on Palestinian camps in the Lebanon but, today, the massacre has faded from memory. And yet the killings that took place in 1982 seemed to set an example for all the massacres that were to follow: in Rwanda, for example, or during the Balkan wars. And each time, the same unanswered questions seem to persist: what is it that drives people to execute such acts of excessive cruelty? And how can the perpetrators live on in the knowledge of their hideous deeds?
Both in terms of content as well as in its aesthetic approach, this film is a psychological and political portrait of six men who took part in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. These men did what they did not only because they were following orders but also because they were acting of their own volition. Drawing a parallel between the protagonists’ psychological disposition and their political environment, the film uses the perpetrators’ narratives to address the phenomenon of collective violence per se.
Although the film does not seek to reconstruct the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, the interwoven narratives of the film’s six protagonists nevertheless provide a hitherto unpublished version of the events: that of the perpetrators.
Monika Borgmann
About the Filmmaker
Monika Borgmann was born in Germany. She studied Arab philology and political sciences in Bonn and Damascus.
From 1990 – 2001 she worked as free-lance journalist for radio and press in Cairo while traveling in the Middle East and North Africa.
2001 she co-founded with Lokman Slim the film production Umam Production and 2004 Umam Documentation & Research, a civil company that deals with the issues of civil violence and war memories in Lebanon.
Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim are the co-authors and co-directors of the feature documentaries MASSAKER and TADMOR.