| Udi Aloni | |
|---|---|
Udi Aloni October,2008 |
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| Born | 10 December 1959 Israel |
| Occupation | Filmmaker , Writer |
Udi Aloni (born December 10, 1959) is an Israeli and American filmmaker, writer and visual artist whose works focus on the interrelationships between art, theory,and action. He began his career as a painter, establishing the Bugrashov gallery in Tel Aviv, a home for contemporary art, cultural and political events. His work in large-scale art led him, while living in New York in the 1990s, to invent a method for advertising on urban architectural structures. In 1996, Aloni began making films. His documentary, Local Angel (2002), and his first feature-length fiction, Forgiveness (2006), are both radical interpretations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have stirred controversy in the Middle East and internationally. Aloni also directed “Kashmir: Journey to Freedom” (2008), a documentary about the nonviolent movement for liberation and freedom in Jammu and Kashmir that opened in the Berlin International Film Festival. He is a member of the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace and the head cinema coach in the Freedom Theatre of the Jenin Refugee Camp. His book, What Does a Jew Want (edited by Slavoj Žižek), will be published by Columbia University Press in Spring 2011.
Contents |
2010-12 Antigone In The Jenin Refugee Camp,(Fiction film - work in progress).
2009 Kashmir: Journey to Freedom PANORAMA DOCUMENT opening night Berlinale.
2009 Journey in Palestine with philosopher Alain Badiou.
2008 New York. Premiere of Forgiveness.
2007 “Forgiveness and Retribution”: Symposium with Judith Butler, Jewish Book Week, London.
2007 Jury Member, Panorama – Berlin Film Festival.
2006 Artist in Residence, European Graduate School. 2006 Forgiveness (Feature Film).
2005–2006 Symposia and Lectures with Slavoj Zizek.
2005 Rolling in the Underworld’s Tunnels (book, Hebrew, published by HaKibbutz Hameuchad).
2004 Local Angel (book, ICA, London).
2004 Innocent Criminals (Music Video).
2002 Local Angel (Documentary Film).
1996 Left (Documentary Film).
1996 Re-U-Man Inaugural Presentation, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
1995 The Book of Sham, New York.
Aloni's comments on Israel and the Palestinians have stirred controversy. Aloni has called for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. He accuses Israel of "apartheid" that "in some ways [] has been crueler in Israel" than South Africa because "the entire judicial system conceals and cleanses the praxis of government-led apartheid."[1] Aloni has described the state of Israel as "unbearable" and "fascist" and he has called for replacing the state of Israel with a "bi-national" state of Palestine[2] and "free[ing] ... Israel from Zionism."[3] He supports boycotts of and sanctions against the state of Israel and views his work for the "BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement" against Israel as crucial to his seeing Palestinians as a "brother ... with whom I share a common identity."[4] Aloni has written against what he calls the "the hoax of Israel democracy" and what he calls the "occupation regime [engaging] in a worldwide rebranding of Israel as an enlightened state."[5] The slogan "From the River to the Sea all People Must be Free" appears on Aloni's website.[6]
The film Forgiveness (2006), which had its Middle-Eastern premiere in Ramallah, recently stirred up controversy when the Israeli embassy in Paris threatened to withdraw funding from the Israeli Film Festival in Paris (Festival du Film – Israelien de Paris [7]) should they open the festival with the film [8]. Aloni (along with Naomi Klein, John Greyson, and others) was an initiator of the Toronto Declaration [9], a petition to protest plans to "host a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv" because according to the petitioners doing so constitutes "staging a propaganda campaign" on behalf of "an apartheid regime." Aloni claims that "in all his activities," he "is a strong voice in promoting justice, peace, solidarity and love between Israel and Palestine."[10]
Aloni’s films have been presented in various leading film festivals and universities, among them the Berlin International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Tokyo International Film Festival, the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema, and the Jerusalem Film Festival. Forgiveness (2006), which took the audience award at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2006 [11], was described by Slavoj Žižek as “maybe the most beautiful, powerful and important film ever made about the tragedies of the region” [12]. Its theatrical release in the United States opened with Miriam Said, the widow of late Edward Said, reading the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish.
In 2007, Aloni was a Jury Member for the Manfred Salzgeber Award in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany.
Aloni’s writing, which includes correspondences contemporary thinkers such as Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, and Avital Ronell, spans the fields of theology and psychoanalysis, literature and philosophy. His recently-published book Gilgul Mechilot (Forgiveness, Or Rolling In the Underworld's Tunnels), a collection of stories and pensees, includes his politically-charged essays Messianic Manifesto for Binationalism and Reflections on the Coming of the Messiah [13].
Aloni coined the phrase “radical leftist Messianism” to describe his political ideology, which attempts to identify and analyze the theology of secularism, or the unconscious theological underpinnings of secularist and liberal discourses, specifically in Israel. In Messianic Manifesto for Binationalism [14], he calls for a radical re-reading of Zionism, stating that “Any attempt to resist the Law of the Father as violent Zionist extremism only strengthens him. […] We must cleanse Zionism of its nationalistic elements without relinquishing its Messianic fervor for liberty, freedom, and equality.”