The New York Times Op-Docs has acquired Rona Segal’s acclaimed documentary short “Mission: Hebron”Distribution. It will be available on nytimes.com as well as The New York Times YouTube channel on November 16.
At the age of 18, Israel requires that all citizens serve in the national military. In “Mission: Hebron,”Six ex-soldiers recall their service in the military.
Segal said: “When I was 18 years old, I joined the army – the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Recruitment is mandatory in Israel, and we are educated never to doubt its necessity. I wanted to be a filmmaker, so I pulled every string I could in order to get to the IDF Filming Unit. As strange as it sounds, the army was where I learned to make movies. ‘Mission: Hebron’ allows me to go back to those years in the army, but this time with a critical perspective – a perspective 18-year-olds simply don’t have.”
“Mission: Hebron” was nominated by Israel’s film academy for the Ophir Award for Best Short, was a finalist for the European Film Awards for Best Short and won Best Short Documentary at 2020 Jerusalem Film Festival. It has been screened at AFI Fest.
Christine Kecher, Op-Docs senior commissioning editor, stated, “When our team saw ‘Mission: Hebron’ during its U.S. premiere at AFI Docs, we knew we wanted to collaborate with the filmmakers to bring this film to a larger audience. Rona’s fearless filmmaking and personal experience serving in the IDF, as well as the honest and harrowing first-person accounts given by the ex-soldiers she interviewed, provides a powerful and unprecedented view into life on the ground in the occupied West Bank.”
“Mission: Hebron”It was produced by Idit Kliger from Kliger Films, and executive produced in part by Kobi Mizahi of KM Productions.
Op-Docs is the New York Times editorial department’s channel for short opinion documentaries produced by independent filmmakers. It is home to many Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning short subject documentaries and has won the International Documentary Association’s Best Short Form Series Award.
A new investigation by The Washington Post was published earlier this month. It was based on testimony from soldiers of Breaking the Silence. This group of veterans soldiers who served in the Israeli army, discovered that broad Israeli military surveillance uses facial recognition to monitor Palestinians living in the West Bank.
You can watch the video “Mission: Hebron” trailer here: