Browse Films

The core of this haunting meditation on war, land, the Bible, and filmmaking is a portrait of Revital Ohayon, an Israeli filmmaker and mother killed in a terrorist act on a kibbutz near the West Bank. Director Lynne Sachs' journey to discover who Revital is results in this stunning cine-essay on violence, identity, crisis in the Middle East and motherhood. Avoiding easy political polarizations, the film is structured around an exchange of letters between Sachs and her Israeli friend Nir Zats. Together, they reveal Revital's story through her films, news reports, and interviews, culminating in heartbreaking footage of children discussing the violence they've witnessed and an unforgettable visit with Ohayon's grieving family. Without taking sides or casting blame, "States of UnBelonging" becomes a cine-essay on fear and filmmaking, tragedy and transformation, violence and the land of Israel/Palestine.

Both humanist reverie and implicit cautionary tale.
Joshua Land
Village Voice
full review

A meditation on fear and filmmaking, tragedy and transformation, violence and the land of Israel. Surprisingly beautiful, like the embattled countryside it depicts. War, creativity, beauty -- it's a depressingly frequent concatenation, but Sachs makes it sing without glorifying death.
George Robinson
The Jewish Week
full review

A profound meditation about living in an unstable world, with the personal densely blurred with the historical. Sachs has created a challenging, invigorating film-essay that could rank with the multi-layered ruminations of Chris Marker.
Fernando F. Croce
Cinequest Film Festival
full review

Sachs can turn simple ingredients into poetic imagery.Mixing found footage and her own crisp digital imagery with great success, Sachs' sensitivity towards Ohayon, with whom she identifies, results in the kind of layered story you won't find in any newspaper.
Johnny Ray Houston
San Francisco Bay Guardian
full review

So, what is an "experimental documentary?" In this case, it means a film that, rather than posing as an Objective Statement of The Truth from a Noted Authority, attempts to convey the inner experiences of a whole person, with a spirit, a heart, and a mind, as she grapples with some bewildering aspects of the real world. We need more films like this.
David Finkelstein
Filmthreat
full review

More Reviews

AWARDS & SCREENINGS:

• Margaret Mead Documentary Film Festival
• Jerusalem Film Festival
• XIII Annual Visible Evidence Documentary Conference, Sao Paolo, Brazil
• Center for Media, Culture & History, New York University
• 2nd Prize Documentary, Athens Film Festival
• One of the 10 Best Documentaries of the Year, Senses of Cinema
• New York Underground Film Festival
• Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y, New York City