Description:

A provocative celebration of empowerment through digital cinema which follows a group of Black Bedouin women in the Israeli city of Rahat who are enrolled in a community filmmaking class. The Black Bedouin community has no collective memory of their origins. They believe themselves to be Bedouin without clan connections. In fact, the women are the descendants of Africans who were brought to Israel by Arab slave traders. It is not until they are given an assignment to film interviews with members of their community that they become aware of their slave past. At first with disbelief and hurt, which grows into anger and curiosity and finally a compelling need to know, the women use their new-found filmmaking skills to address their origins and examine taboos in the Bedouin tradition, including the erasure of their history from the Bedouin traditions and the traditional prohibition of interracial marriage. They begin to understand why the Arab society has never shown any kinship despite a shared Muslim heritage. The highlight of the film comes when the women travel to Africa for the first time and on the island of Zanzibar visit a monument dedicated to the memory of those taken away. For African Americans it is interesting to witness and contrast to ourselves, the reaction of these women as their knowledge increases.