West Bank Story: Parody for Peace

With Ben­jamin Netanyahu vis­it­ing Barack Oba­ma this week, we’ll hear some chat­ter about get­ting the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian peace talks back on track. But, let’s be hon­est, no one is expect­ing any real break­throughs here. Peace, love and under­stand­ing – the rad­i­cals and reac­tionar­ies won’t give you that these days. Only movie mak­ers will, which brings us to West Bank Sto­ry, a 21 minute film that par­o­dies the 1950s clas­sic musi­cal, West Side Sto­ry, a pro­duc­tion which is itself adapt­ed from Shake­speare’s Romeo and Juli­et. Direct­ed by US film­mak­er Ari Sandel, West Bank Sto­ry pre­miered at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val in 2005, and then won an Acad­e­my Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2006. In mak­ing the film, Sandel had three main goals: to make peo­ple laugh, to advo­cate peace, and to por­tray the Israelis and Pales­tini­ans in a fun­ny but bal­anced way. You can learn more about the direc­tor’s approach here.

Oth­er than watch­ing the film above, you can view it direct­ly on Google Video or down­load a copy here. Also find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.