The Road to Bethlehem is now completed and Tipping Point Film Fund is helping to raise the campaign outreach budget for Leila Sansour’s film,  to be released Christmas 2011. Click to donate to the campaign outreach and mark your donation ‘The Road to Bethlehem’.

We are delighted that the Dubai International Film Festival selected the film for screenings at their 2010 festival and that the Dubai Entertainment and Media Organization also awarded the film a grant.

I am delighted that Tipping Point has become the home of my film in the UK. I couldn’t have a better partner in my journey to bring the story of Bethlehem to the world.

- Leila Sansour – The Road to Bethlehem

What would you do to save Bethlehem?

In 2004 director Leila Sansour set out to find the answer for herself.  Four years later, she found it.

This documentary is a personal story filmed over four critical years in the life of Bethlehem. This most famous little town also happens to be Leila Sansour’s hometown. She left it as a teenager, pledging never to return. But in 2004 she went home for Christmas. The journey changed her life.

The film is shot over four Christmases in the life of Bethlehem as, piece-by-piece, hundreds of slabs of concrete are lowered into place to build a wall that will seal the city from the outside world. The story is told through the eyes of the film’s director. It is her own very personal story.

To hear the latest news from Leila read her blog, or for a small taster of the film watch the clip below.

Raising the completion budget

Tipping Point Film Fund has helped raise finishing funds of £85,000 to support the editing and completion of the film, as well as the international outreach plan for the film.

The film mobilised a fund-raising base that raised more than £70,000 towards this final sum – from individual donations,  collective group contributions, dedicated fund-raising events and appeals. Supporting donor organisations include Trocaire (Ireland), Development and Peace (Canada) CBA Dfid (UK), and most recently McCabe Educational Trust.

Leila has a proven track record as a feature documentary director – her first film was the internationally acclaimed Jeremy Hardy versus the Israeli Army. Find out what the Radio 4 comedian had to say about ‘The Road to Bethlehem’:

Completion and campaign outreach fundraising

A thank-you to all supporters to date from Leila Sansour and a new appeal

The film is now in its very final stages – read here - this personal appeal from Leila to the many donors who have supported the film to date. We are seeking the final £15k to complete the film and the first stage of outreach campaign funding of £25k.

The campaign accompanying the film on its release will be a 2-3 year long international effort to engage the public and decision-makers on the critical issues affecting Bethlehem and Palestine more widely, and inspire audiences around the world to get involved and really help make a difference. The following clip is a message from Leila Sansour about why you should support her film:

To find out more about how you can help ‘The Road to Bethlehem’ make a big political impact on its release, go to The Road to Bethlehem fundraiser page.

Open Bethlehem

At the heart of the film and the campaign, founded by the director herself in 2005, is Open Bethlehem, an international campaign set up to address the state of emergency in Bethlehem. It has secured widespread attention and endorsement from world figures such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter and is a campaign that will enhance the film’s international impact with the intention  of creating a positive impact for her home town.

Dubai International Film Festival

We are delighted that Leila Sansour’s feature documentary film was selected for prestigious Dubai International Film Festival 2010 (DIFF). Additionally, the film received an award from the Dubai Entertainment and Media Organization, which is now a co-producer on the film.

Timescale

The film is near to completion for a release sometime in 2012. Integral to this will be a international outreach campaign at the heart of which will be Open Bethlehem.

More information:

• Open Bethlehem
• Leila’s work referenced in the Church Times
• The Open Bethlehem campaign signs up to a faith leaders letter

Cashback (working title)

Speak-It Productions.
Producers/Directors Marc and Nick Francis.

In development

Tipping Point Film Fund is excited to be working with the makers of the highly acclaimed Black Gold on their next feature-documentary film  Cashback.

Cashback will be a landmark cinematic feature-documentary thriller about illicit financial flows. It will tell the story of how money is drained out of developing countries by a network of  bankers, accountants, and lawyers into secret,  off-shore Western bank accounts, undermining the lives of millions of people. It is estimated that for every dollar of aid that goes in to developing countries ten dollars comes out under the table.  How does this happen? Why is no-one paying attention? This landmark film will peel away the secrecy to reveal one of the 21st century’s biggest scandals. Cashback will act as urgent wake up call to the public on one hand, as well as being a powerful lobbying tool for organisations to use at the highest level.

Critically, the release of the film will be supported by a multimedia website and 3 – 5 year international outreach campaign. Development agency Christian Aid were early development funders of this project. It is hoped the film will start production in late 2010 and that funds raised through Tipping Point Film Fund can contribute a significant part of the overall production and campaigning budget.

For more information and how you can support this project please contact us.

Campaign – Tax Justice

Tax justice is a growing campaign as the issue of tax – evasion, avoidance – both domestically and internationally becomes more and more relevant to global politics. Developing countries have lost, and continue to lose , massive amounts of revenue from unpaid taxes.

Unpaid taxes that multinationals avoid paying through a combination of practises – some just plain unethical, others illegal. They are ‘assisted’ by banking and accountancy systems where secrecy and complexity combine to make it impossible for poor countries to track what is truly theirs. It amounts to billions. Watch this space for more information on the Tax Justice campaign that will be developed alongside the film.

Also find out more about Black Gold which continues to stir audiences up across the world.

Black Gold Movie Trailer

More information:

• Tax Justice Network
• Christian Aid
• Global Witness
• Tackle Tax Havens

Christmas in Bethlehem is a time for tradition, though some traditions are newer than others. Over the last decade the regular PR battle over the city has become a staple part of the Christmas experience. Trails of reporters arrive as early as the beginning of November to scout locations. Their stories follow what has already become a seasonal format. The cameramen shoot pictures of the wall painting the grim reality of Bethlehem while reporters recite figures showing the decline of the local Christian population and the collapse of the tourist economy.

In the five years that I have served as the director of Open Bethlehem, I have been interviewed by everyone from national television stations to phone-in radio to student magazines. One of the most demanding and unpleasant parts of my job is dealing with those journalists who arrive with an all too familiar agenda to highlight Christian-Muslim discord. Bethlehem’s story is twisted to make communal strife the key factor in Bethlehem’s tragic story while downplaying the brutal realities of life under occupation. I have slowly learnt to recognise the journalists with a guilty conscience. The majority of them appear to recognise that they have not come to investigate. All they need is a quote from a random Christian willing to vent about a dispute they have with a Muslim neighbour. Once the reporters have got their sound-bite, they are gone. In a city that has been turned into a prison town and is dominated by so much tension this is not difficult to obtain. What is worrying about these phenomena is the energy that hostile news media put into turning Bethlehem’s story upside down. They have grasped the importance of our city in the seasonal PR battle better than our friends, and they have mobilised effectively to ensure that the truth remains hidden.

The reality on the ground, for anyone who cares to visit and look around, reveals a completely different story. The series of Israeli invasions into Bethlehem that began in November 2001 and continued throughout 2002 brought about the complete economic collapse of a city whose industry depends largely on tourism. 62% of Bethlehem’s population are dependent on the tourist sector. The wall which isolates Bethlehem from the outside world and from its sister city Jerusalem has hastened the decline. A UN report called ‘The Changing Face of Bethlehem’, published in 2004, predicts a grim future for Bethlehem, mentioning, of course, the dwindling Christian community which now numbers 30% of the population. 10% of Bethlehem’s Christians have left the city in the last six years alone.

Our own Open Bethlehem survey of 2006 shows that Christians have been the most affected by the construction of the wall since land ownership was concentrated in their hands, as Bethlehem’s oldest residents. The vast amount of land confiscated to build the wall has impoverished this community. Christians have also been in a better position to benefit from religious tourism, an industry which relies on an infrastructure shared between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The separation of these cities has devastated Bethlehem-based companies which have offices in Jerusalem, or long-standing contracts with bus companies and tour operators. The fate of the tourism industry is just one example of the mutual interdependence of these two cities. Their ties go back centuries, creating a communal and economic infrastructure that means the cities cannot survive if they are forcibly separated.

It is the cumulative weight of the occupation that hits one so forcibly in Bethlehem. The social and political damage that the occupation is doing to the region and to the Middle East as a whole stares one in the face in my hometown. This is why Bethlehem is so important in the jigsaw of telling the story of Palestine and, more importantly, in winning friends. A tour of Bethlehem proves that Israeli occupation is a government-driven project aimed at seizing and annexing Palestinian land. The city’s proximity to Jerusalem and the strategic value of its water resources means that Bethlehem has always been coveted by Israel. As a result, settlements have been built with much greater intensity in this area than elsewhere.

Bethlehem’s compact geography reveals at a glance the extent and the appetite of the settlement project. Today Bethlehem is surrounded by more than twenty well-developed settlements. In a city ringed by hills, the settlements are for ever in one’s eye-line. They are designed to fence in the city, physically separating the city from its agriculture villages, neighbouring towns and, once again, from Jerusalem. When plans are approved for new units, Bethlehem wakes to the sound of drills and bulldozers echoing off the hills. I am particularly aware of this because I have combined work at Open Bethlehem with making a film about the city and the sound on my tapes is sometimes deafening. Once the outer walls of the housing units are thrown up, construction abruptly halts. Har Homa, the closest settlement to Bethlehem whose expansion seals the last remaining corridor between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, has been staring over Bethlehem with its unglazed windows for the past ten years. It is a settlement without settlers, built not to satisfy demand but to seize local land. Where it stood, there was once a tranquil pine forest.

Of course all other faces of the occupation are present here, too. The collapse of the economy means that many Bethlehemites can only make a living as cheap labourers in Israel. The Israeli military authorities have placed a ceiling on work permits, allowing 2000 people from a district of 175,000 to travel to Jerusalem each day. We can leave only from one exit and the queue of two thousand men stretches several hundred metres by opening time at 5.00 am. Those with medical permits also have to wait in line. Recently, the behaviour of Israeli soldiers has been getting uglier and their mood angrier which I believe can be attributed to their sense that the world is growing condemnatory of their government’s actions. Permits are easier to obtain for those working on the settlements that surround Bethlehem. Israeli construction companies obtain permits directly from the military for the 3000 locals desperate enough to work for below the Israeli minimum wage, building settlements on land confiscated from their own community.

Bethlehem is suffering like all Palestinian towns but its tragedy is uniquely visible. A visit to Bethlehem dispels all distractions with regards to the nature of the occupation and makes it very clear that East Jerusalem is key in any peace deal for a healthy future Palestinian state. The impact of the city’s experience is all the more powerful because Bethlehem’s heritage is a global heritage. The damage wrought upon the city – on its holy places, its physical geography and its sites of special archaeological interest – is felt by many around the world as a personal affront. Whether one believes that Christ is the Son of God or a beloved prophet, or simply the reason that we exchange gifts at Christmas, the ties that bind the world to Bethlehem are obvious and immediate.

This is the most famous little town on earth. The name Bethlehem transcends all of the unsavoury stereotypes that colour the image of Palestine. If my five years as the director of Open Bethlehem have taught me anything, it is that Bethlehem unlocks doors and opens ears. We do not need to beg for a hearing when we speak of Bethlehem: the world actually wants to know. Too often, however, our friends around the world, either underestimate its power or are simply too timid to focus on a story that resonates so strongly with our childhood hopes for Christmas. Israel’s supporters are not so delicate. Each Christmas, as the spotlight turns to Bethlehem they seek to change the story.

As we again approach Christmas, let us remember that day, many years ago, when a star shone over my city to mark a new message of peace and goodwill to all men. This message still reverberates today. No one leaves Bethlehem without seeing the urgent necessity of ending the occupation and seeing justice for the Palestinian people. Our task is to do everything we can to hasten that day. Too often, when we campaign for Palestine, we waste our limited resources on issues that the majority of people have grown tired of hearing about. The result is that we spend our efforts breaking down closed doors. When we focus our efforts on Bethlehem we find a willing audience. So this Christmas I ask you to think about how we can make the star of Bethlehem shine brighter. Every local paper, every newsletter or union magazine, every radio station or television channel, is more than happy to discuss Bethlehem at Christmas. It can be particularly effective to privately sponsor journeys to Bethlehem for local opinion-formers who will be invited to talk to the media on their return (vicars, councillors, union leaders, journalists, local dignitaries). Money and time is precious: find a Bethlehem project, back it and make sure everyone knows what you have done. Christmas is the one moment that the world comes to ask Palestinians for their story, we cannot afford to waste it.

For information on Leila’s film project Road to Bethlehem.

For donations to the Open Bethlehem campaign visit: www.openbethlehem.com

Leila Sansour, founding member of Open Bethlehem
Christmas in Bethlehem 2009

We are looking forward to working with them, and other agencies, on the outreach campaign for the film, including its partner organisation Trócaire, who has already pledged its support to the film.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace is a democratic movement for international solidarity, supporting partners in the Global South in the pursuit of alternatives to unjust social, political and economic structures. It educates the Canadian population about the causes of impoverishment of peoples; mobilizes actions for change; and in the struggle for human dignity, Development and Peace associates with social change groups in the North and South.

As an organisation working to improve the lives of all human communities in a lasting way, in the Palestinian Territories Development and Peace assists Caritas Jerusalem in relieving people’s hardship and the Society of Saint Yves in defending the human rights of those most in need of help.

• To find out more about the film and how it’s developing read on here.
• Donate to help Tipping Point Film Fund gather together the final money to make this film a reality.

Here Comes the Sun: Redistributing the Power

Director – Marc Silver
Producer – Lisa Marie Russo

Directed by Marc Silver (currently working with Gael Garcia Bernal, Jamie Cullum and Michael Nyman), and  produced by Lisa Marie Russo (BAFTA and Emmy award-winning producer whose many credits include the critically acclaimed Of Time and the City), Here Comes the Sun will be stunning in its use of visual language and sound design, whilst at the same time packing a political punch and engaging with audiences beyond those in the know.

In Development

Following the disappointing outcome of the UNFCCC conference, in Copenhagen in December ‘09, Here Comes the Sun can offer a vital critique of where the debate about climate solutions goes next. Research is underway to identify the characters who will take us through the story, ultimately offering a pragmatic and positive solution designed to empower us all to continue to tackle the issues of climate change.

Background

Many experts argue that the human race can secure all the energy it needs from renewables and energy efficiency combined.  At the very latest, we have until 2040 to massively cut our dependence on fossil fuels. We have reached the climate change ‘tipping point’ and almost every day brings deeply alarming new information about the changes the planet is undergoing, and by definition, ourselves – not just us here in the rich northern hemisphere but even more so, in the global south, where the impact on the world’s poor has been evident for more than 20 years.

The sun is but one of a number of renewables available to us, along with sea, wave and wind power. Ideally, the whole range of renewables needs to and can, work together.

This film wants to share the vision held by many about the specific – and unlimited – power we must harness: solar.  We hope to create a different ‘tipping point’ – one where the call to capture the limitless power of the sun is heard and acted upon.  It will link with environmental and social justice campaigns around the world.

A few facts

The sun is 150 million kilometres from earth yet, day by day, the sun supplies 15,000 times the amount of the daily energy demand of the total global population.  In less than 30 minutes the sun sends more energy to our planet than is consumed in a whole year.

A gigantic solar plant in the Sahara (roughly the size of Wales) could provide for our global energy demand. The panels would only need to capture 0.3 per cent of sunlight falling in deserts such as the Sahara to meet Europe’s energy requirements.

Meanwhile, 90% of the worlds population lives within 2,700km of a desert and could be supplied with solar electricity  from desert sun power. Equally, if every rooftop had solar panels, our energy supplies would be revolutionized. The sun as a source of eco-friendly, abundant energy, is available for at least another 5 billion years.

Budget

We are seeking £15,000 development and estimate a production budget of approximately £350,000. Additionally we will be seeking a campaign outreach budget of approximately £70,000.

Find out more:

• Age of Stupid – new documentary tackling climate change, oil, war, politics, consumerism, human stupidity and more.
• Stop Climate Chaos – the coalition of UK development and environment groups campaigning together on climate change.
• Solarcentury – one of the UK’s market leaders in providing solar cell technology.
• Friends of the Earth – find out how to make an difference on climate change at home and abroad.
• Greenpeace – take direct action.
• Christian Aid – campaign for a just climate.
• See the impact a 4 degree temperature rise would have on the planet.
• Read how solar power from the Sahara is a step closer.

Other recent funders to come on board include CBA DfID Broadcast Media Scheme, which is supporting the film with a grant award of £10,000. The CBA-DFID Broadcast Media Scheme was established in 2001. The CBA (Commonwealth Broadcasting Association) has funding from DFID (the UK Government Department for International Development) to manage the scheme which is editorially independent.  The objective of the scheme is to improve UK  public understanding and awareness of the developing world via the mainstream broadcast media.

Campaigning

The effective outreach of the film is central to our plans. Leila – who has many years experience campaigning on the issues concerning her country –  was recently asked by the Carter Center to travel to Atlanta to make an Open Bethlehem presentation at a conference designed to bring faith agencies together around a new push for the US to play a more constructive role in its policy-making toward Israel/Palestine. It was a hugely successful event in the lead up to President Obama’s first meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his first trip to the Middle East.

Events

Tipping Point Film Fund will be profiling Road to Bethlehem at this year’s Greenbelt Festival – the main focus of the festival this year is on Palestine. Tipping Point Film Fund will be unveiling the ‘world’s smallest cinema’ at the festival in the G-Source tent.  If you are at this year’s festival then please do come and see us.  Not going to the festival?  You can follow what we get up to on Twitter and on Facebook.