Land for the Nomads
Israel says that it is planning to remove and relocate 2,300 Bedouins from the Judean desert, east of Jerusalem. Over the past four decades they were pushed down the valley close to a hazardous highway while Jewish settlements and outposts dotted the Judean hilltops. The Bedouin shacks are routinely demolished by the Israeli Civil Administration on the grounds that they are built without ‘building permits’. Shlomo Lecker is an Israeli lawyer who defies all stereotypes. He is a Jew who fights for the Arab Bedouins. He is an Israeli who challenges the Israeli judiciary. The film explores Lecker’s personal relationship with his clients – the lone Israeli who claims that he has a Bedouin soul.
Directors
Lipika Pelham
Lipika Pelham is a British-Bengali journalist and writer who worked for the BBC in London for 12 years, before moving to Jerusalem in 2005. She has MA in History, Philosophy and Sociology of Indian religions, King’s College London, London University, UK, 1994. She has compiled and presented numerous programmes for the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4 from Jerusalem. It was during making a radio
documentary for the BBC on honour killing in the central Israeli city of Ramle that she decided to make the film DEADLY HONOUR, as the story was visually too powerful to tell over just a few radio broadcasts. Apart from being a journalist and film maker, Ms Pelham has also written a book. In 2012 Ms Pelham completed her second documentary film LAND FOR THE NOMADS.