International Center for Cultural Studies

Into the heads of Israel: “Izkor: Slaves of Memory” Screening & Siscussion with Filmmaker Eyal Sivan

2024-05-13

Date: May 13, 2024
Time: 14:00 (Taiwan time GMT +8)
🎤Speaker: Eyal Sivan
▶Documentary filmmaker and theoretician based in Paris, France
▶Born in 1964 in Haifa, Israel and grew up in Jerusalem

🎤Moderator: Hanh Nguyen
▶Ph.D. candidate, Institute of Social Research & Cultural Studies, NYCU
▶Editorial board member, Conflict - Justice - Decolonization (CJD), International Center for Cultural Studies, NYCU

Norman Finkelstein famously said, “I do not want to get into the heads of Israelis”, highlighting the disturbing reality that the majority of Israelis either endorse or overlook the genocide their government is plausibly committing in Gaza. Yet, we are compelled to ask, why? Why the extreme racism and violence against Palestinians? Why the guiltless, unashamed massacres of children and women? Why the proud bragging of such horrifying deeds?

In Israel, the mantra “Never again” envelops the nation in an atmosphere, an ever present cloud, a widespread fear, touching every aspect of daily life, reason, opinions, creativity and choices people make for the future. Every year, a powerful machine for the perpetuation of memory goes over Israeli society like a steamroller. How has this collective memory developed? What are the symbols that contribute to its strength and to what purpose is it being used?

Made 3 decades ago, award-winning documentary Izkor: Slaves of Memory by Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan remains remarkably relevant as a significant explanation of the nightmarish present. It provides a revealing window into the collective psyche of the Israeli population and, more significantly, unveils the State’s manipulation of history through a series of official celebrations, rituals, tributes, and ceremonies designed to shape and control this psyche.

Izkor: Slaves of Memory offers visual, human and pragmatic answers to these questions. From kindergarten to the army, the filmmaker and his crew follow Israelis as they grow up, in order to better understand how every citizen is imbued with this “official memory”. A succession of real time events, of places and of people, that together reveal the intricacies of what can be called “dictatorship of the memory”.

Can a people keep walking forward with the rest of the world, all the while repeating endlessly: “Our Future is past us”?