Oscar-nominated Guy Davidi speaks about Venice entry Innocence

After his Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated film 5 Broken Cameras, co-directed with Palestine’s Emad Burnat, Copenhagen-based Guy Davidi is unveiling in Venice his latest anti-war and anti-military film Innocence, sole documentary entry in a section dedicated to ‘the latest aesthetic and expressive trends’.

Based on ten-years of research, the film chronicles the fate of children who resisted mandatory enrolment in Israel (three years for boys, two for girls) and capitulated.

Their stories were never told as they died during their military service.

Through a narration based on their haunting diaries, home videos from the soldiers who died, and first-hand military images, the film depicts their inner turmoil, and how Israeli society is pressuring them from childhood to enrol in the military, to devastating consequences.

Innocence was produced by Sigrid Jonsson Dyekjær for Danish Documentary Production in association with Tel-Aviv-based Medalia Productions, in co-production with Real Lava, Guy DVD Films, Finland’s Making Movies, Iceland’s Sagafilm, support from the Danish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Creative Europe, Channel 8, The New Fund For Cinema And TV, the Finnish Film Foundation, AVEK , the Icelandic Film Centre, and Asia Screen Pacific Awards (Apsa).

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We spoke to Guy Davidi ahead of Venice.

Firstly, what was your motivation for making this film?
Guy Davidi: I had this idea already when I was doing 5 Broken Cameras, a decade ago. I knew I wanted to make a film based on diaries, text of soldiers who had died in the military. I was looking for texts that were harsh and would involve major accounts of their own decision to enrol. It took many years of research to find those stories and archive videos.

It was also an indirect way to tell my own story. I did manage to get out of the military service, but I wanted to make a film about those who didn’t make it, those who at one point couldn’t go on. It’s a tribute to them.

How was your own experience with the military service?
GD: Although I lost my father when I was very young, I had a profile of being a combatant, so there was no way I could evade military enrolment. But I’m not into that at all. I’ve always hated anything connected to war, Zionist propaganda, visiting memorial sites of people who died during Israeli wars. I had an in-built sense of critique from a young age and was quite rebellious as a teenager.

I knew what I wanted to do in life and started making films when I was 17. That was a big power.

However, even if I was rather strong-willed, I still enrolled. That military experience lasted three months. During that period, I was constantly at the military psychologist, trying to get out. The heroic story is to get out of the military once you’re in! That might be the story for another film. It’s very difficult, but I managed. As I said earlier, the film is dedicated to those who didn’t succeed in getting out.

The film focuses on youngsters who are particularly sensitive, who find it extremely hard to fit-in the macho army mould and have died in uniform. Why did you choose this particular angle for your main protagonists?
GD: What I’ve really wanted to focus on were characters who are writers-that defines the film. They had an observational view of the world, and that of course brought to the forefront the sensitivity, inner turmoil of those soldiers who were forced to enrol. This is very important to me.

How was the process of finding your protagonists, having access to the home videos and diaries of the soldiers?
GD: I worked many years and have laid my eyes on 700 stories, many that ended in suicide.

I contacted probably 50-60 families, and of course many of them didn’t want to collaborate. Some hadn’t even read their kids’ diaries, others denied what had happened. There were all types of challenges when approaching the families. I ended up picking the stories where people were talking in retrospect about what had happened.

Was your narrative structure something that was clear from the beginning?
GD: No, it took a long time to find the language and structure of the film, probably as long as the research. I didn’t want talking heads, interviews of people discussing what had happened. There are indeed very few interviews with family members. I wanted the film to be entirely the characters’ perspective. But what do you do when you have so little material? I guess some people would have staged the events. But I didn’t want that.

At the same time, I had another idea. I was interested in soldiers that had disabilities, and the different type of pressure that they were facing. While researching, I found the story of a blind girl who became the first blind officer. Then I said to myself-why not unite those ideas?

The writing from the deceased soldiers, was actually referring metaphorically, to the idea that we are blind and deaf to their issues, that society is not listening to them.

As soon as I came up with the idea to combine those ideas into one film-many people said: this will never work! So for three years, I worked really hard to edit it, and find a language that can connect it altogether.

You describe how Israelis are being pressured from a very young age, to believe in the necessity to serve in the army, to protect their country. This is a very sensitive topic. How do you think this will go down in Israel?
GD: It’s not a new story - everyone knows this. Many people are concerned about what the military service will do to their kids. The question is what can parents do about this? You need the family to be united in this anti-military belief. They would have to refuse to send the kids to school certain days, picking the friends according to their political views. That would be very difficult, and not good for their well-being while living in Israel. Most people just give up, and learn to accept.

Even if you leave the country when kids are 15-16, it’s still not enough. They have been conditioned from childhood to think in a certain way, and it’s almost part of their identity.

The word compromise is cited at many instances. This is ultimately the hardest for the protagonists-they are forced to compromise, act against their belief and who they are which has tragic consequences…
GD: This is hitting me at another level. Sticking to your values and fighting for them is defined as something that is not smart in Israel.
In today’s politics in Israel, you see left-wing politicians giving up their values, joining the right-wing government. How can they, when there is the highest number of administrative arrests without trials in 14 years, six human rights NGOs in Palestine that have been raided by the military and closed down with absolutely no grounds or proof. People just compromise. I can’t understand this.

In your film, you also have footage of military training. How did you get access to it?
GD: I contacted some soldiers privately. Some filmed this with a GoPro camera or old DV footage. But the military was not super strict in supervising this footage. It’s really basic training. Often, the military likes these images to circle around because it mostly helps their propaganda. I found most images on Youtube and asked to get access to the footage. Often, it’s not directly connected to the characters but just there to illustrate the narration.

Who worked with you on the editing?
GD: After two years of editing on my own, I worked for 5-6 weeks in Paris with Véronique Lagoarde-Ségot, who co-edited 5 Broken Cameras with me. But then I continued by myself. It was very hard to let someone else do it. So I ended up editing the film, with my wife Maja Friis as co-editor.

How did you select Iceland’s young composer Snorri Hallgrímsson for the score?
GD: I love Icelandic music. When I started to collaborate with my producer Sigrid [Dyekjær], I said we have to build it as an Icelandic co-production. I had another name in mind originally- Ólafur Arnalds, but then I turned to Snorri Hallgrímsson, an upcoming composer. I feel I have discovered the next musical soundtrack genius of Iceland.

With war in Ukraine, there are more calls from governments for youngsters to enrol. Do you hope your film might deter some people from doing it?
GD: For every young person in the world who sees the film and says I’m not going do the military, that will be an achievement for me. That was also my determination when I did 5 Broken Cameras in Israel.

Militarisation in Israel is shaping its society and is over-powering. The country is at the heart of the military import/export business in the world, and it’s growing. It is simply impossible to think that a country that profits so much from its military approach, would be able to change and deal with issues differently than in a militaristic way. You would need a massive international campaign to try to make changes, but this is not happening. If sanctions towards Israel would ever take place, you would immediately see a positive change. Occupation of Palestine would get closer and it would be good news both for Israeli and Palestinians. Our militarisation has ruined us.

This film is really a wake-up call. I want the Israeli military to be under pressure from a rise in objection to serve. That would put pressure from within on Israeli society to change its priorities, and certainly contribute to building better conditions towards an end of occupation.

I hope the film can contribute to saving the lives of people who might get hurt in the military, but also to saving people from being corrupted by the military propaganda. It’s an attempt to bring to our side the free spirits in this world.

Let’s talk briefly about the financing of this film. I understand that on top of the majority financing from Denmark, Finland and Iceland, you did get some funding from Israel…
GD: When 5 Broken Cameras was nominated for an Oscar, Israel all of a sudden had to deal with an Israeli guy who didn’t accept the common discourse and was not speaking in a compromising way. That was also the case with [Israeli-born Palestinian] Mohammad Bakri and his film Jenin, Jenin [about Israel’s military operations in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, banned in Israel].
With our Oscar nomination, Israel felt culture is a ticking bomb, it can be dangerous for the politics of Israel, and have an impact.

Today, it is increasingly difficult for me to get financing from Israel. The biggest film fund Keren Rabinovich has been politicised the last few years, for instance a film that revolves around the vision of Israel as a democratic country for all -meaning not only Jews- would now be banned under their criteria. But I did get support from the New Israeli Film Fund and Channel 8 as well. They encourage artistic approaches and are not politicised to that extent. They have been wonderful partners.

You’re going to Venice’s Horizons. How important is this for you?
GD: What is great is that we’re the only documentary in the Horizons competition slot where we’re surrounded by fiction films. Many docs in the industry are ruled by topics, their journalistic perspective, and they are not always picked for their artistic approach. So being accepted in a section dedicated to artistic works is a huge honour.