Cut

A jumble of families, consisting of Turks and Iraqi Kurds, inhabits the Jewish settlement Ajjur in Israel. In the late forties, the Iraqi Jamo family was sent to the ‘Promised Land’, ‘where honey flows down from the mountains’. Although paradise turned out to be a disappointment, they could not go back; it said in their passports that they would never be allowed to enter Iraq again. The Turks came a few years later, in 1953. The Jewish Agency governing the settlements told them to build up a life as farmers. Two of the three Turkish brothers changed their family names into Hebrew names. Haim Documanchi then married the Iraqi Salima Jamo, against the will of both families. One year later, when the Jewish Agency decrees that Ajjur has to become a cooperative, the Turkish-Iraqi marriage is more convenient. A political alliance is established, until years later, when relationships between the two families once again deteriorate.In this film, director Nizar Hassan illustrates how religion can disrupt people’s lives if it is used as a tool of power politics. In unravelling the power relations within the settlement, the Palestinian Hassan had to conquer considerable distrust on the part of his discussion partners. The greater their say in matters concerning the community, the more hesitant the interviewees are to divulge their motives. Others find it hard to discuss painful things that happened in the past. This explains the title of the film: the evasive ‘cut’ stops the dialogue several times.