The Billboard From Bethlehem
Short Synopsis
Palestinian fighters and Israeli Defense Force fighters (The Combatants for
Peace) gather Palestinian and Israeli children to paint a giant peace mural in
the West Bank of Palestine.
Medium Synopsis The owner of an American billboard company engages Israeli soldiers and
Palestinian resistance fighters (the Combatants for Peace) forming the
backbone of interviews, historical footage, and stories of personal
transformation. Together, they create a giant peace mural in the West Bank
of Palestine. Featuring powerful music, poignant interviews with Israeli and
Palestinian fighters, , children having fun, and a a brief history of the
conflict vision for peace in the Holy Land, the film climaxes when 100
Israeli and Palestinian children paint a giant billboard that visits a mosque, a
synagogue, and a church, before being posted on a busy American highway.
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Director’s Biography
Bruce A. Barrett is
partner with his
brother John E. Barrett
in Barrett Outdoor
Communications Inc.,
a family billboard
company in
Connecticut. Bruce
graduated from
Carnegie-Mellon
University in 1985
with a B.S. in Applied History and Industrial Management. After graduation,
Bruce spent one year as a Missionary in Punta Arenas Chile, teaching
English and running the youth group at Saint James Episcopal Church.
Bruce is 2006 recipient of the Living Waters Award from the Connecticut
Conference of the United Church of Christ for working with youth and
promoting peace and diversity. In 2006 Bruce created the billboard and Web
site campaign www.IWagePeace.Org as a primer on active non-violent
peace making. An amateur piano player, Bruce has written numerous songs
and one Christmas play called “The Perfect Christmas.” The Billboard from
Bethlehem is his first film. Bruce is an active member of the Woodmont
United Church of Christ, in Milford Connecticut and lives with his wife,
Therese, their two children, and various good friends who reside with them
from time to time in their Connecticut home.
Director Statement For the Children of Israel
and Palestine, peace is a
matter of life and death in the
here and now. They have
practiced active close up war
for fifty years. After fifty
years of active war, the tools
of active non-violence are
becoming attractive and
practical, and I believe we
are seeing in Israel and
Palestine a growing desire to
wage peace non-violently.
This means that the Israeli
and Palestinian victims of
suicide bombers or land
confiscation, must study the
tools of active non-violence
as practiced by Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., and adapt
them to their own culture and circumstances. Most importantly, it means the
United States must encourage fair treatment of all people, oppose torture,
land confiscation, suicide bombers, and oppressive trade
restrictions. If we study and work hard for peace, then peace will come to
us.
The Combatants for Peace are dedicated to creative non-violent
action, and as an American, my roll is to encourage and inspire such action.
The Billboard from Bethlehem is one
step on the way toward active nonviolent peacemaking. With the film, I
want to inspire Americans to see that
our options are greater than mere “fight
or flight”. I hope viewers will see that if
we dedicate to active peacemaking some
of the vast resources we have dedicated
to war making, then we will find
ourselves filled with allies, options, and
opportunities for peace that evade us
under our current way of dealing with
conflict.
Peace is not a pipe dream; peace is earned through hard work.
The weapons industry in the United States is hard at work feeding hundreds
of thousands of employees across the nation. We make money building war
machines, but we make no money building the machinery of Peace. The
Peace Corps, for example, has only seven thousand seven hundred and
twenty-five personal on the ground worldwide. I'm a pragmatist; I
believe our current war policy has failed. I am also an idealist; I believe all
God's children are called to become peacemakers. Jesus taught us to love our
enemies, and he said "Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called
the children of God". I suppose that says is all. I hope this is the first of
many films I will make on the subject of peacemaking.
Production Notes "Sleepless Journal Day 1"
We arrive exhausted from a midnight flight out
of JFK. The drive from Tel Aviv to Bethlehem was madness; our driver was
a crazy 70 - 75 miles per hour tailgater weaving between cars. I am dizzy
tired. The billboard paint we shipped two weeks ago has not arrived. Worry
preempts exhaustion.... Its after midnight,
... and I can not sleep.
"Sleepless Journal Day 2"
"At the crack
of dawn on our first day in the West Bank,
I hear the haunting muslim call to
morning prayer. Not one call sung by a
single voice, but many single voices
calling over distant horn speakers all
around Bethlehem, echoing voices, human
voices rising and falling, awakening me
with their own cadence, dissonant,
harmonious, blending in haunting pools of tonality, soul, and air. Dogs now
barking, roosters crowing, a cacophony of mystic reality on the edge of the
dawn... stillness returns with silence stirring prayer is now over. It is 5:30
a.m.
We are renting a flat from Sis and Jerry Levin. A former CNN
borough chief, Jerry was kidnapped by Hezbollah and held captive for some
nine months before his release in the late 1980's. Jerry and his wife have
since become peace activists with Christian Peace Making Teams. The flat, a
tiny three bedroom ground-floor apartment, is a cheap rent for our two week
stay in Bethlehem. Sis didn't tell me about the chicken coop (rooster
included) just outside my bedroom window. Today we must buy some
paint.
News & Reviews
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2007/06/24/import/18511575.txt
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2007/05/24/import/18381479.txt