BEAUFORT

“Winner of the 2007 Berlin Film Festival’s Best Director award and also an Academy Award nominee for best foreign film, BEAUFORT chronicles the final days of an Israeli army unit’s tense, painful withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.” Just as the occupation and withdrawal were controversial, so is this film which looks beneath the surface of military press releases into the hearts of young soldiers: “In a small enclave, an isolated cage in the heart of enemy territory, in the backyard of a magnificent ancient Crusader fortress, stands the Beaufort outpost. Beaufort personified the most disputed of Israel’s wars and was a symbol of Israeli control in Lebanon, but it was also a myth of heroism upon which generations were raised and for which many lost their lives. There, on the mountain top, completely cut off from anything familiar, was a boy-soldier’s state – with its own rules and colorful language, where fear reigned but youthful innocence and happiness too had a hold.” On May 24, 2000 the outpost was demolished under orders of the Israeli military command and the retreat began. [Kino]