Unsettling

Tekoa is a trendy hipster colony for Israeli settlers on the West Bank, where none of the controversial residents want to speak to the media. From the moment Iris Zaki arrives, tension fills the air. She sets up a small pop-up film studio in the middle of the small town, and stays put for over one month in order to meet the young settlers face to face. It's a simple intervention, which creates a complex chain of reactions from those who eventually agree to talk to her--from a woman who in the middle of an interview admits to being a fascist, to another who has survived a knife attack by a young Palesitinian – and forgiven him. Unsettling is made by Iris Zaki alone as a social experiment that highlights the contrasts and contradictions of the settlers' self-perception, but which does so in something as rare as an active conversation with them. A conceptual ploy places Zaki's film in the field between artistic practice and political activism, and reaches beyond blind criticism. (Santa Barbara International Film Festival)