Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958–1989 (Documentary)
Director: Göran Hugo Olsson
Producer: Tobias Janson
Viewer Advice: Contains medium impact war and conflict themes.
A prime-time epic charting three decades of politics, survival and power struggle, as watched from the living rooms of millions of Swedish homes.
For over 30 years, Sweden’s public broadcaster, SVT, brought stories about the lives of Israelis and Palestinians to Swedish households night after night. Journalists embedded from Gaza to Jerusalem presented recordings of public speeches, armed conflict and everyday life, relaying voices of civilians and soldiers as well as those of political leaders such as Golda Meir and Yasser Arafat. Bound by a charter of neutrality, the television channel left behind a wealth of reportage on the region’s contested landscape throughout the second half of the 20th century – an archive that serves as the basis for Göran Hugo Olsson’s ambitious documentary.
Crafting a found-footage compendium from thousands of hours of news reports without editorialisation, Olsson offers the same incisive depth to the violently intertwined history of Israel and Palestine that he has previously lent to subjects including American racism (The Black Power Mixtape, 1967–1975, MIFF 2011) and postcolonial liberation (Concerning Violence, MIFF 2014) – revealing not necessarily everything that happened, but rather how the world saw it. Spotlighting the effect that media reportage has had on the world’s understanding of the conflict, as well as how its representations have shifted and evolved over time, Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958–1989 is a decades-spanning archival chronicle like no other.
“An astonishing, invaluable document of the history of Israel and Palestine, and a fascinating insight into the complicated nature of journalism.” – The National