The Wanted 18

The Wanted 18 (2014)

In the Middle East, only cows are black and white

Through stop-motion animation, drawings and interviews, directors Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan recreate an astonishing true story from the First Palestinian Intifada: the Israeli army’s pursuit of eighteen cows, whose independent milk production on a Palestinian collective farm was declared "a threat to the national security of the state of Israel."

Date of release
2014-09-06
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (15)
Runtime
1h 15m
Genres
Documentary, Animation
Director
Amer Shomali, Paul Cowan

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

The Wanted 18 is a 2014 animated documentary about the efforts of Palestinians in Beit Sahour to start a small local dairy industry during the First Intifada, hiding a herd of 18 dairy cows from Israeli security forces when the dairy collective was deemed a threat to Israel's national security. The film combines documentary interviews with those involved in the events, archival footage, drawings, black-and-white stop-motion animation as well as re-enactments, and was co-directed by Canadian filmmaker Paul Cowan and Palestinian visual artist and director Amer Shomali. The film was the Palestinian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards but was not nominated.

Production

The idea for the film began in Shomali's boyhood, spent largely at a Syrian refugee camp where his main escape had been reading comic books, one of which dealt with the story of the Beit Sahour cows. Montreal-based producer Ina Fichman first heard of the story when a group of producers and broadcasters at a documentary-pitch event Ramallah. Shomali's original intention had been to make a short animated film on the story.

Interviewed in the film are Jalal Oumsieh, a schoolteacher who had purchased the 18 cows, geology professor Jad Ishad, pharmacist Elias Rishmawi and butcher Virginia Saad. The film also interviews two members of the Israeli government: Shaltiel Lavie, then-military governor of the region, and Ehud Zrahiya, his Arab affairs adviser.

The film score is composed by Benoît Charest. The Wanted 18 is a co-production of Intuitive Pictures, the National Film Board of Canada, Bellota Films, Dar Films Productions, ARTE and 2M (see credits-end of documentary). The producers are Fichman and Nathalie Cloutier. The film received funding from the Beirut-based Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC). and from SANAD, Abu Dhabi film festival.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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