In “The Lemon Tree,” Israeli director Eran Riklis delivers a new perspective on the Middle East in the form of a profoundly moving fictional microcosm of the Israel/Palestinian struggle over land, security and displacement.

A Palestinian woman’s lemon trees become a point of contention when the Israeli defense minister moves in next door. Located along the Green Line between Israel and the occupied West Bank, the grove has been dutifully tended to by her family for generations. The defense minister fears that a terrorist could come across the border through the grove, inspiring his campaign to tear it down. The battle over the grove’s preservation is eventually taken to Israel’s High Court of Justice.

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The trailer for the Silver Bear winner at the Berlin Film Festival, Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure, is out! I’ve been waiting for it for quite some time. Watch it below (or for a more high quality version go HERE ).

Also, be sure to to learn more about the film and how you can take part!

Also of note is a great article that Errol Morris wrote for this week’s issue of The New Yorker called Exposure : The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib.

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Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure, the first documentary to be shown in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, has won the festival’s Silver Bear (second place). I’ve been blogging about the film leading up to it’s Berlin debut and while it’s always a treat to simply see a new film from Morris regardless of awards, the results at Berlin make me excited - not only as a viewer but also as filmmaker.

For a documentary, especially a political documentary that deals with a controversial subject matter, to be in competition at a major European film festival is a major statement. It speaks to the state of documentary film in general and to the merging of cinema with politics in a way that allows the two to benefit from each other. By this, I mean a film that is true to issues, but is crafted with a regard for the art of cinema. Morris has always put care behind his ideas as well as his construction, and his win signals recognition of this.

For more on the results at Berlin, head on over to Indiewire. And to keep up with Standard Operating Procedure, and find out more about the film.

Errol Morris premiered his new film, Standard Operating Procedure, at The Berlin Film Festival on Tuesday night. The documentary follows in the footsteps of films like Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side and takes on the issue of war and how digital imagery can change our perspective on it. While other films have dealt with the actual acts caught on tape, Morris takes a deeper look into context of the actual photographs.

Morris has always dealt with his subject matter in unique ways, right down to filming his interviews in a machine called the interrotron . In Standard Operating Procedure he uses re-created scenes and fictional footage, storytelling methods he has used in the past. At the press conference following the film, some journalists gave him a hard time about this and asked about such use:

“With due respect I think this is nonsense talk,” he told the reporter at the press conference, “There’s this idea that truth is guaranteed by somehow the style of presentation, that if I run around with a handheld camera and I shoot with available light that is somehow more truthful.” Continuing, Morris noted, “Truth is a quest…something that I have never lost sight of and never will.” [Indiewire]

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Mike Leigh may not have a history of being a “happy go-lucky” director, but he is one of my favorite directors. His films, like Vera Drake, All or Nothing and Naked, usually take a look at a more dour side of life. Imagine my (and the film community at large’s) surprise when Mike Leigh showed up at the Berlin Film Festival this year with a film called Happy Go-Lucky.

The story of Leigh’s film revolves around Poppy, a primary schoolteacher with a positive outlook on life and

While it is a comedy, the film had a serious intent and expressed something “very important”, he (Leigh) said. “At the beginning of the 21st century, when we’re in a world that’s heading towards disaster, it’s important to reject the growing fashion to be miserabilist, the growing fashion to be pessimistic and gloomy because the world is in a bad way. Everywhere there are people on the ground getting on with it and being positive.”

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The Berlin Film Festival is underway! The 58th Berlinale commenced on February 7th and will run 10 days through the 17th. Folks are already starting to talk about the films playing at the fest and I’m going to do my best to tell you about some of the more interesting pieces they are talking about.

Over at GreenCineDaily (a great film blog) their review of a documentary by the name of Sharon caught my eye. Dror Moreh’s Sharon tells the story of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Sharon was notoriously known for going from supporting the gruesome 1980 attacks on Lebanon to actually working for peace between Israel and Palestine towards the end of his career. The film looks at what influenced this change of heart, as

Sharon was seen by his reactionary constituency, who supported his murderous war in Lebanon in the early 1980s, to have betrayed his closest allies.

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Oh, no! I just spent, like, the last forty years idolizing Neil Young, and now he says he doesn’t think music can really make a difference in the world. At the Berlin film festival today, where he presented the documentary “CSNY/Déjà Vu”, about his 2006 anti-war concert tour, he told the AFP:

“I know that the time when music could change the world is past. I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality.”

He may””unlike Pete Seeger–be pessimistic about the power of song, but Young doesn’t really seem ready to give up on being an agent of change. He’s working on a new film called “Repowering The American Dream,” a documentary about the ‘59 Lincoln he’s converted to a plug-in hybrid, according to the Daily Green, which quotes a more optimistic-sounding Young:

“By drawing on entrepreneurial companies’ advanced technology and good old American ingenuity, we intend to transform one of the largest and heaviest gas guzzling vehicles of our generation into a highly energy efficient vehicle, and demonstrate to the American public that we can re-power the American dream by demanding environmentally-friendly vehicles now.”

Sounds like Young is just looking for new ways to electrify the electorate. Long may he run.

Young gives other musicians who want to express their opinion on the war and related topics a chance to be heard on his Living With War website; give them a listen here  if you’d like to hear from folks who still believe music can make a difference. 

Errol Morris is set to premiere his latest documentary, Standard Operating Procedure, at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival. Morris, best known for The Thin Blue Line, Mr. Death and 2003’s Academy Award Winning The Fog of War, is now taking on the abuse scandal at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. To tell the story Morris uses recovered footage, photographs and reenactments.

Morris, one of the true masters of documentary film, always does an amazing job telling a story without telling his audience what’s right and wrong. He simply tells you the facts, which often leave you in a murky gray area that’s anything but clear - much like life, especially when it comes to big political situations.

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