My grandmother was born in Palestine. I was born in Israel. There are words that capture the worlds that changed, in between those two sentences: atzmaut, independence; and nakba, catastrophe. The first is Hebrew, the second is Arabic. They mean the same thing, and they mean completely different things; the one would not exist without the other.
Gay Palestinian men
Mozer's documentary The Invisible Men explores an entirely different – but not separate – facet of loss and identity and persecution as a result of the conflict: that of gay Palestinian men who, under threat of death from their families (in Palestine) flee illegally to Tel Aviv, where (as citizens of a "hostile" state), they cannot legally live, nor apply for asylum or assistance, and so they hide: they learn Hebrew, they wear a Star of David to blend in, they take odd jobs to survive; they learn to stay away from Jaffa (the Arab town, now in effect part of Tel Aviv), and how to slip back through the border posts each time they are caught and deported.
The documentary required something of a leap of faith from Mozer, who filmed for years "without knowing if I had a film" because he had undertaken to protect the identities of the Palestinian men involved, and would only be able to tell their stories if all of them gained asylum (in other countries) and were safe.
Mozer says that, though his initial intention was to raise awareness about these men within the gay community, as he continued to work on the film it also became an important statement about identity – something the central character, Louie, is forced to confront when he drives past Jaffa at night (hidden in the back of a taxi to avoid detection), nostalgic for his own people, his own culture; and when Louie has to choose whether or not to stay (illegally) in Israel, or make a new home in a completely foreign land. "Why don't I have rights?" Louie asks one night, saying that there is an Israeli stamp on his birth certificate – only, he was born in Nablus, not Tel Aviv. One hour and worlds apart.
"When we describe our own identity, then we understand how similar we are," Mozer says. "The deep love of language, the climate, the culture. This is something we share, and we don't understand we share."
Mozer's second film, a feature drama called Snails in the Rain, also deals with identity – in this instance, a former Israeli soldier, now student, who is taunted, tormented even, by anonymous love letters from another man, which challenge his own closeted sexual identity (language plays an interesting role here; Hebrew has clear masculine and feminine structures, so the typewritten missives give away little, except the gender of the author). Some of the scenes play out during the main character, Boaz's, military service. Mozer says he had served in a combat unit in the IDF, and that it was "important the actors [in the film] had done the same. I can immediately notice the difference. You know from very small behaviours, from the way he wears his clothes, the way he talks."
It's a further reminder that, in Israel – positioned one way or another, depending on which papers you read or which channels you watch – the dialogue is far from homogenous, and even the territory of ideas, of idealism, is disputed.
Mozer, for example, continues to serve in the IDF – all soldiers are required to do annual reserve service, even after their call-up. "The change should be from the inside," he says. "There are things I will never agree to do, and by saying no it will be a significant message. [Israel] is my country. I love my country. I will change it from the inside."
Within the Eye of the Storm can be viewed online at withineyeofstorm.com and screenings for senior high school students can be arranged on request.