H2: The Occupation Lab
Directed by Idit Avrahami and Noam Sheizaf, and produced by Peabody Award-winning and four-time Emmy Award nominee Hilla Medalia (Medalia Productions) and Paul Cadieux, as well as Israel’s Hot8 (Channel 8), H2: The Occupation Lab, had its world premiere in competition at Docaviv 2022. The film was first pitched at the Tel Aviv-based CoPro market which is running this year in parallel with the fest. Sales are handled by MetFilm Sales.
The documentary focuses on a one-kilometer road in the city of Hebron, which has undergone 50 years of military occupation. Once considered an exception (“the only Palestinian city that has a Jewish settlement inside it…”), it turns out to be a test lab for the Israeli military, where methods of control over the civilian population are developed and implemented.
“CoPro was essential to our production,” producer Medalia told Business Doc Europe. “Not only did it allow meaningful engagement with major decision makers at every stage of the project, what’s more important is the fact that it allowed us to take some of the guests to our actual film location in Hebron. And it was there that the reality to which they were exposed helped us convince them to enter this project. This is something we simply couldn’t have done in any other place in the world. “
“Our film combines current affairs, history and politics, and CoPro has presented us with an opportunity to find exactly the right partners to come on board on such a project,” she added.
At this year’s CoPro market, Medalia is pitching Ada, a film about Israel’s most celebrated architect Ada Karmi Melamede, as told through the lens of her daughter Yael Melamede, the Oscar-winning producer of Inocente and co-producer of the Oscar-nominated My Architect by Nathaniel Kahn. Melamede also executive-produced Ran Tal’s 1341 Frames of Love and War, which was selected for this year’s Israel Competition at Docaviv.
Ada Karmi Melamede is one of the most prolific female architects of her generation in the world and has spent over fifty years teaching, designing iconic buildings, and winning prestigious awards—including Israel’s greatest honor, the Israel Prize. But in spite of her success, Ada shies away from nearly all press and publicity. Ada introduces audiences to an unusual and reluctant protagonist through the lens of her filmmaker daughter, a former architect.
The 90-minute project is at late shooting/early edit stage ahead of a January 2023 release. Israeli broadcaster yesDocu is onboard, as are investors The New Fund for Cinema and TV and Jewish Story Partners.
