Kimberly Lindbergs

Breaking Barriers: Walled Off (2023)

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

Banksy, Walled Off (2023)
The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem located near Israel’s imposing West Bank Barrier wall.

Like most Americans, my understanding of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict was shaped by a dangerously inadequate public school education along with government and corporate-approved media coverage. As a result, I had to make a conscious decision to educate myself. To do so I sought out independent news sources and local accounts to better understand the region’s history and the plight of the people caught up in a decades-long violent dispute bankrolled by American tax dollars. But despite my best efforts, it has often been the poetry, art, and films made by creative Palestinian and Jewish anti-occupation activists that have taught me the most. The arts can open our hearts and minds while providing an intimate view of human suffering and loss that history books and impersonal news stories often ignore or at worst, actively avoid.

Watermelon Pictures is a new Palestinian-owned film production and distribution company that understands the power of art to encourage contemplation and provoke change. The company describes itself as a “platform for change” and releases films that celebrate Palestinian culture while amplifying excluded voices to educate, inspire, and promote creative resistance against injustice.

One of the most recent films distributed by Watermelon Pictures is Walled Off (2023), an inventive documentary that does a wonderful job of bridging the gap between history, information, and the arts. It bills itself as an investigative look into the Walled Off Hotel located in Bethlehem that was designed and financed by the British artist Banksy. But the film is much more than that. It is a powerful, moving, and insightful look at the region’s troubled history spotlighting the creative ways that the Palestinian people and their supporters have been using the arts and other means of nonviolent protest to resist occupation.

Banksy is a vocal supporter of Palestine liberation, and the controversy-courting artist opened the Walled Off Hotel in 2017 to align with the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which led to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. In a press statement the artist said: “It’s exactly one hundred years since Britain took control of Palestine and started re-arranging the furniture – with chaotic results. . .I don’t know why but it felt like a good time to reflect on what happens when the United Kingdom makes a huge political decision without fully comprehending the consequences.”

Banksy’s hotel boasts “the worst view in the world” due to its location, which is just steps away from the West Bank separation wall. It also houses a large collection of Banksy art as well as a museum documenting the history of the wall and the Palestinian people. The Walled Off documentary begins by introducing viewers to the hotel and its museum followed by a journey through occupied Palestine where we learn about the creative ways that people are protesting the occupation. We also hear from Palestinian and Israeli youths who share their firsthand accounts of living in the region combined with revealing news footage detailing its war-ravaged history.

Along with using music to effectively capture the viewer’s attention, Walled Off is edited in a creative, Tik-Tok friendly manner that should appeal to anyone struggling to make sense of the current crisis in Gaza dominating the news. The result is an engaging and moving film that humanizes the Palestinian people while emphasizing the power of politically engaged art.

Walled Off was directed by Palestinian-Italian-American filmmaker Vin Arfuso and produced by the Palestinian-Dutch-American model and musician Anwar Hadid, the brother of Watermelon Pictures’ creative director Alana Hadid. The film’s other producing credits include Kweku Mandela (grandson of Nelson Mandela), and the outspoken musicians Roger Waters (Pink Floyd co-founder) and Immortal Technique.

Arfuso and Hadid shot their documentary in 2019, long before the events of October 2023 that have led to the closing of the Walled Off Hotel, but the filmmakers dealt with their own struggles while trying to make and promote their documentary. In Israel they had most of their camera equipment confiscated by authorities, so they were forced to shoot much of the film using an iPhone over a 10-day period. And since the release of Walled Off in 2022, they have struggled with shadow banning on social media, limiting the film’s ability to reach an audience.

Despite the setbacks, the gorilla-style filming techniques in Walled Off give it an urgency and intimacy that many standard documentaries lack. It also has a youthful exuberance and optimism that should appeal to viewers of all ages if they can find the film.

Walled Off is currently available to rent or buy from Amazon and YouTube. And according to the official Walled Off website, any of the film’s proceeds exceeding the purchase price will be equally divided and donated to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and the Defense for Children International-Palestine.

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