The Brown & White

Film producer and director Ari Folman presented a screening of his Golden Globe-winning film, "Waltz with Bashir," Thursday in the Main Gallery of Zoellner Arts Center.

The film focuses on the horror surrounding the events of the massacre that occurred in the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila, after would-be Christian leader Bashir Gemayel was killed.

Many Israeli soldiers, like Folman, found that the trauma caused memories surrounding the massacre, part of the 1982 Lebanon War, to be forgotten. "There were still black holes missing, and I decided that I would find out what they are," Folman said.

Folman recounted his journey to discover memories lost from the 1982 Lebanon War, which included the massacre of nearly 3,000 people.

Laurence Silberstein, director of the Center for Jewish Studies, introduced Folman and the film. Silberstein and Folman noted that the film tells a universal story of war.

Silberstein said the film is "one of the most outstanding anti-war films of the twenty-first century."

Folman said his inspiration for the film came when a friend confronted him about a reoccurring nightmare, where 26 vicious dogs came for him. Folman choose to produce the film as an autobiographic account of his wartime memories.

Throughout the movie, Folman pieces his story together by talking to the people who share a similar story.

With the help of others, Folman was able to remember nearly everything except for the massacre.

Folman's only recollection of the massacre and his involvement came as a dream, where he rises naked out of the sea along with some of his comrades as flares hang over the camps where the massacres were taking place.

The naked soldiers then don uniforms on the beach, and enter the city, only to be greeted by a crowd of crying women.

The goal of the war was for the Israeli Army to invade a region in South Lebanon so they were close enough to launch rocket attacks. Arik Sharon, who was the Israeli Minister of Defense, wanted to go through Beirut to occupy Lebanon.

Sharon's plan also included placing an allied Christian, Bashir Gemayel, in the presidency of Lebanon. Sharon's goal was to bring peace to the areas of North Israel that were plagued by years of bombing from Lebanon, as well as to build the front against Israel's Northern enemy, Syria.

The massacre was triggered by Bashir Gemayel's murder, and revenge led Phalangist forces, a right-wing Lebanese political party, to surround and kill Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps.

Although the film accounts the true events of Folman's process to regain wartime memories, the film is animated. "Animation gives you freedom, freedom to move from one image to another," Folman said.

The animation also helped the film connect dream sequences with reality, and past events with present ones.

Many of the other soldiers Folman interviewed for the film also experienced dreams as a result from their time at war. Folman said his job is to make those dreams real.

The film jumps between wartime scenes and those of the present, as Folman retraces his steps. However, the film ends with a short live action clip taken by a Swiss film crew just after the massacre ended. "Those 50 seconds of live action put the whole film into proportion," Folman said.

The film contains the stories of the other ex-Israeli soldiers interviewed by Folman. He heard many accounts, and said the stories documented in the film are barely a tenth of all the stories he heard while filming.

One of the stories describes a soldier being abandoned behind enemy lines as allied forces suddenly retreated. The lone soldier hid by the beach until nightfall, when he then returned to friendly forces by swimming out to sea and to allied grounds.

This soldier admitted to Folman how this experience affected the rest of his life, as the soldier felt abandoned, then felt as if he had abandoned his fellow soldiers. This experience permanently distanced the soldier from his unit.

Of the many other testimonies and experiences documented in the film, the audience was able to pick up the anti-war nuances.

The experiences and emotions seen in the film are universal and contribute to the general anti-war sentiment, according to Folman.

Folman compared the 1982 Lebanon War to what the American soldiers faced in Vietnam, as well as modern conflicts. Folman described these experiences as surreal, an additional reason to animate the film.

Folman said the film is now being used to aid soldiers facing post traumatic stress. The animation, he said, aids in their journey to come to terms with events of war.

The film has won six Israeli Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award for "Best Foreign Film," and was nominated for the Academy Award under the same category, according to the film's Web site.

Folman did not expect this level of acclaim for such a personally driven film, but when asked how he feels about the Golden Globe and other awards, he simply replied, "It's great."

The event was sponsored by the Berman Center for Jewish Studies and the department of Latin American studies.