It would undoubtedly seem a coup for first-time filmmakers to land candid interviews with such noted thinkers as linguist Noam Chomsky, war correspondent Robert Fisk and attorney Alan Dershowitz. And Montreal-based co-directors Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal felt a solid sense of achievement when they captured comments from these pundits for their film about the riots that rocked their alma mater, Concordia University, in September of 2002.
Then they left the ruminations of each of those luminaries on the cutting-room floor. As Addelman and Mallal describe it, the exclusion was all part of the plan for their documentary, Discordia, a film they wanted to keep primarily expert-free, instead telling the story through the eyes of three students. The documentary recounts the fallout at Montreal's Concordia campus after a lecture by Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu had to be cancelled due to a riot.
Discordia begins as one might expect, retracing the events of that autumn day, as students found one of the university's downtown locations, the Hall Building, divided between two factions locked in a nasty dispute. On one side was Hillel, Concordia's Jewish students' association, which had invited Netanyahu to speak. On the other were pro-Palestinian activists, furious that the right-wing former Israeli prime minister was being handed a forum at their university.
The images ran in newscasts across Canada for weeks afterward: Jewish students and leaders being spat upon by anti-Netanyahu protestors; riot cops pushing back an angry mob; and finally, the Hall Building's massive, plate-glass window façade being smashed, an act that led organizers to call off Netanyahu's speaking engagement.
After retracing the initial brouhaha over Netanyahu's visit, however, Addelman and Mallal do an intriguing thing: They take Discordia away from undergraduate debates about Middle Eastern issues and what constitutes free speech, and instead focus on three idealistic young activists and how the ensuing campus turmoil affected them.
One, Samer Elatrash, the son of Palestinians who emigrated to Canada in 1967, is an adamant pro-Palestinian activist. Noah Sarna is the co-president of Hillel, one of the co-organizers of Netanyahu's visit. Perhaps most engaging is Aaron Mate, a student-council vice-president who is a Jewish descendant of victims of the Holocaust, but whose sympathies remain primarily with the pro-Palestinian camp.
"Right from the beginning, there was an overhyped quality to things," says Mallal, of the mainstream media coverage. "I think it was disturbing for many of us to view something that nasty here in Canada -- we're not built for that. Most of the kids involved were Canadian-born, which made us think: 'What was making them so swept up in this debate?' It was so personal for them."
Mallal and Addelman, freshly graduated from Concordia's communication-studies program, watched the riot unfold on the nightly news. Mallal was then a production intern at the National Film Board in Montreal, when his childhood friend Addelman -- "We both played in a band together once," says Mallal -- suggested the activists involved would make for excellent documentary subjects. Pitching the idea to the NFB's documentary unit, they got the green light.
Mallal says one of the primary tasks the two faced was cutting through the considerable amount of rumour and hearsay that surrounded the riot. "Ultimately, we decided we wanted to stay out of the debates surrounding Mideast issues and free speech," he says. "In order to see things from both sides, to understand each viewpoint, we thought that it would be easier if you know the activists as people."
Addelman says their focus on the students' personal lives and their frustrations meant that "the issues at hand effectively became the backdrop, and the film became character-driven." And making Discordia at the NFB, he reports, meant that "we had the time to move beyond the headlines and see these activists as more than simply one-dimensional. [Producer]Adam Symansky and [editor]Hannele Halm were incredible mentors for us -- they really guided us through the process."
Among a number of surprising scenes, one reveals that Elatrash has a Jewish girlfriend and is a women's studies major. As well, it shows Elatrash's emotional devastation after what many agreed was a disturbingly one-sided account of the riot, Confrontation at Concordia, which aired on the Global television network.
That film went to great lengths to liken the pro-Palestinian protesters to neo-Nazis, including one sequence that dissolved from a shot of the Hall Building's smashed window to a photograph taken of a Berlin window broken on Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass in 1938, when Nazis viciously attacked German-Jewish merchants and citizens.
The filmmakers were not drawn to activism when they were students. "I always tended to ignore the activists then," confesses Mallal. But their recent student status did help them gain the trust of their subjects. "We made sure we always used small cameras and not much equipment," he notes. "We never used a boom microphone -- they're way too imposing. We tried to blend in whenever we could."
The result is a film that shifts allegiances and sympathies frequently, illuminating the conflict from a number of varied perspectives. "This is a film about having an open mind," argues Mallal. "I like to think of it as very Canadian. We are a nation of compromise, after all."
And those expert reflections on the Concordia controversies from the likes of Dershowitz, Chomsky and Fisk? Mallal and Addelman say their opinions will not be lost, and will be posted on the NFB's official website by mid-February, when people can download clips containing their opinions.
For the record, Dershowitz was critical of the university administration, while Fisk and Chomsky, fervent free-speech advocates, said the pro-Palestinian students did more to damage their cause by shutting down Netanyahu, whom, they both contend, should have been allowed to speak freely. With Discordia, some of those involved are now able to do exactly that.
Discordia will have its world premiere in Concordia's Hall Building at 7 p.m. on Monday. It will screen at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. The filmmakers will be present at both screenings. Discordia will be broadcast on Wednesday, at 10 p.m. on CBC Newsworld.