On Common Ground

Original title On Common Ground

On a small hill in the north of Israel the members of a religious kibbutz, a community of artists and an Arab village, who share a politically fraught history including losing homes and reclaiming identity. Their narratives, often conflicting ones of victimhood and guilt, pride and wrongdoings, lay bare a sense of unavoidable intersubjectivity. This film follows people’s lives in a shared environment and shows that individual identifications do rarely match up with official categories, which are deployed by state sponsored narratives. The governing of those is a powerful tool therefore the creation of contemporary, shared, narratives of land and people is a politically meaningful act. On Common Ground points to the question if, and how, this can have an effect in a country that is divided within and under constant pressure from the outside.

Author/s Sophie Wagner

Sophie Wagner, born 1986, graduated from the University of Vienna in 2012, studying cultural and social anthropology. The documentary film project \’It\’s all relative\’ – which was conducted during her studies with two indigenous families in Australia – led to a research into the instrumentalisation and (re)creation of \”authenticity\” in indigenous culture and identity in Australia. She is currently finishing her second MA in Visual Anthropology at the Granada Centre at the University of Manchester. Since 2001 Sophie conducted several small scale film projects and worked as a camera operator for a broad range of clients. She is also working for the ETHNOCINECA – Vienna\’s documentary and ethnographic film fest.

Research Sophie Wagner
Photography Sophie Wagner
Sound Sophie Wagner
Editing Sophie Wagner