5 Days 2005

5 days is the time it took the Israeli army to evict Jewish settlers from their homes on the Gaza Strip, in accordance with the Israeli government’s policy of ‘disengagement’. This clear-eyed documentary, directed by Yoav Shamir (Checkpoint), records the drama as it unfolded in August 2005, in what must have been a cinematic operation as complex as the manoeuvres of the Israeli army. With access to both the evictees as they barricade themselves inside their homes, and Israeli brass as they discuss military tactics, the filmmakers discover a gripping drama with a Shakespearian cast of antagonists. 

“Terrific... shows how a gift for access, and an anthropologist’s patience for nosing around your subject till it yields unexpected meanings, does nine-tenths of the work... Shamir manages to bring home the passions that ran high between the settlers and the army while remaining open to nuance on both sides, usefully complicating public images of the army as warrior bureaucrats and of the settlers as intransigent zealots.” — Ella Taylor, LA Weekly