Al Jazeera English Rebel Architecture – THE ARCHITECTURE OF VIOLENCE

Il terzo episodio della serie TV Rebel Architecture prodotta da Al Jazeera English si occupa di Israele e la West Bank. Nel film THE ARCHITECTURE OF VIOLENCE la regista Ana Naomi de Sousa segue l'architetto Eyal Weizman lungo il muro di separazione tra Israele e Palestina.



Un film di agghiacciante attualità, dati gli ultimi sviluppi politici, mostra la vita lungo il muro di separazione tra Israele e Palestina. Insieme all'architetto israeliano Eyal Weizman la regista Ana Naomi de Sousa porta gli spettatori in un mondo dove l'architettura diventa un modernissimo strumento di guerra.





Così nel terzo episodio della serie TV Rebel Architecture, prodotta da Al Jazeera English, israeliani e palestinesi raccontano della loro vita quotidiano in un paesaggio dove tutto è pensato in funzione della separazione fra i due popoli.





Come spiega Weizman, “l'architettura e l'ambiente costruito sono una specie di lenta violenza ... per creare un ambiente che diventa qui invivibile per le persone”. Ma Eyal Weizman sta anche cercando di rispondere alla domanda di come gli architetti oggigiorno possano resistere alla distruzione e violenza prodotta dall'architettura. Il suo progetto “Forensic Architecture” sta utilizzando l'architettura come mezzo per indagare sui diritti umani e crimini di guerra. 



Un film che tocca in profondità non solo per via degli eventi bellici tra Israele e Palestina, ma a maggior ragione nell'anno del 25° anniversario della caduta del muro di Berlino che ha portato allo smantellamento di un sistema di separazione e controllo lungo 1400 km.
Siamo felici di poter condividere alcuni commenti personali della regista Ana Naomi de Sousa con i nostri lettori:
"This week, Israel announced the construction of 1472 new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. It made the news for a few hours; but overshadowed by bursts of extreme violence such as the recent attacks on Gaza, the Israeli occupation has become all but normalised: throughout the West Bank, settlements disguised as leafy suburban communities are served by efficient road networks that skilfully bypass the reality of blockaded Palestinian towns and even the long and infamous wall drops off near the settlements to become a thin, almost invisible fence. To the naked eye, this is a benign and still beautiful landscape.
But beyond this façade lies a very real violence - what Weizman refers to as  “slow violence”. It is the process by which Palestinian regional economies are destroyed, traditional communication and transport networks are ruptured, bodies and movement are controlled, surveyed, and dominated. In assembling the apparatus of this occupation, and its disguises, architecture – and architects – have played a central role.
As documentary filmmakers our vocation is to document, and find new ways of telling stories. Working with Eyal Weizman on The Architecture of Violence was an incredible opportunity to represent a much-covered conflict from a different perspective and to consider the central role of architecture in the occupation.  It was also an opportunity to consider how architects might resist the destruction and violence inherent in conflict by bringing architecture into legal and political forums, such as the investigation of war crimes, considering the built environment as a kind of witness to events that are often unseen, and the architect as a kind of forensic expert to read that evidence.
In this sense, it is also an optimistic film; although set against the backdrop of an entangled, bitter conflict and the injustices of occupation, it is also intended as a reminder that we can – and must – seek ways to protest, to resist, and to reimagine the future, even when the present outlook seems bleak."

Episode No.: (3) 
Episode Title: The Architecture of Violence
Transmission date: 1^st September
Dir: Ana Naomi de Sousa
Location: Israel/Palestine  - Occupied West Bank 
Languages: Hebrew/Arabic/English (English)
Link: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelarchitecture/2014/06/architecture-violence-2014629113556647744.html
Articoli precedenti: Vietnam https://www.floornature.it/blog/al-jazeera-english-andldquorebel-architectureandrdquo-vo-trong-nghia-by-nick-ahlmark-9924/, Pakistan https://www.floornature.it/blog/al-jazeera-tv-andldquorebel-architectureandrdquo---the-traditional-future-9929/