A Documentary About a Palestinian Village Sets Off a Dispute No sooner had "5 Broken Cameras," a close-in look at the effect of Israeli occupation on life in a Palestinian village on the West Bank, been nominated for an Academy Award in the best feature-length documentary category than it set off a political dispute in the Middle East. With two directors - the Palestinian Emad Burnat and the Israeli Guy Davidi - was it a Palestinian film or an Israeli film? Just the whiff of Israeli involvement was enough for some Arab countries to ban its exhibition. Mr. Burnat, 41, began making "5 Broken Cameras" in 2005, when his youngest son, Gibreel, was born and also the year Israel began building a fence that cut off his village, Bilin, from fields and olive groves around it. Eventually the video camera he bought to record his son's growth became the instrument he used to document Bilin's resistance to the Israeli plan, resistance that included regular protest demonstrations and a court case. In 2009, after accumulating more than 700 hours of tape, Mr. Burnat asked Guy Davidi, 34, an Israeli director and activist, to help him structure the material. Both men have been in the United States this month to promote the resulting film, whose title refers to the damage Mr. Burnat's equipment has incurred at the hands of Israeli forces. Here are edited and condensed excerpts from an interview they did while in New York: Let's get the political controversy out of the way before we talk about the movie itself. Is "5 Broken Cameras" an Israeli film, a Palestinian film or both? Guy Davidi: We have different descriptions for it. I would say that production-wise the film is a co-production. You have French money invested in the film, Israeli money invested in the film, a Palestinian partner in the production. You have a Palestinian filmmaker and an Israeli filmmaker. The way the industry is defining the film is according to production, so it's a co-production that is Israeli, Palestinian and French. That being said, the film is told from a Palestinian perspective, it's a Palestinian story, it's based in Palestine, most of the footage is Palestinian, it's mostly in Arabic. So its character is Palestinian. Emad Burnat: This film was born in my village and is my story. So it's important to say it's a Palestinian documentary. There was a misunderstanding in the Israeli media, which considers it an Israeli film and made a big mistake and conflict. It's supported by Israeli production, and Guy Davidi is a co-director. But when I decided to work with him, it's not because he is Israeli and I am Palestinian. The idea was not to make an Israeli-Palestinian project. Money came from many different places. But the heart of the story and the blood of the story is Palestinian. This misunderstanding, as you call it, has it created problems for you and the film? Burnat: Of course. Mostly for me, because this is about my village and its struggle. I have been shooting for seven years. It's my family's story, my son's story. How come it became an Israeli film? There is a negative reaction, because when people hear Israel, I mean in the village, they say, "What's going on here?" I also have other pressures. I couldn't screen the film in Arab countries. The goal is to screen the film, reach people, not to create problems or conflict. Davidi: It creates a kind of fear of collaboration, a corrupted collaboration. The way that fear was created was very simple. There was "The Gatekeepers" that was nominated, and us. So the Israeli media - even if they don't care about the films, I'm sure a lot of journalists didn't even see the films - says, "Two films made by Israeli directors, Israeli productions. O.K., two Israeli films, that's the headline, that's it. But the government in Israel, the institutions, they are not supportive of the film so much. The film is financed by the Israeli Cinema Fund, but after the Oscar nomination it's not that I got calls from officials, or people were coming to greet me. It's just a media reaction, a shallow one, that was creating a big mess. Burnat: Just by saying it's an Israeli film, you create a very bad problem. The organizing motif of the five chapters based around the five cameras that Emad used, where did that come from? Davidi: My role was to tell the story. That was what I wanted to do in my life since I was 14 years old and tried to write a novel. When I was 16, I had already directed films. So I am a storyteller. That's what I brought to the project. So together with Emad, we had conversations, I wrote the text, we were speaking about the different characters and trying to create a narrative of Gibreel from start to end, he starts when he is born, he creates this transition from the destruction of the olive trees, to tell the story of Palestine through the kids. To create all the narratives and all the movement in the film, that creates the language of the film. That was my role When Guy suggested to you that you and your family should be the focal point of the film, was that difficult for you? This is after all a collective struggle and not just a personal struggle. Burnat: The story was already there, but to put myself at the center of the film, to use my accident, and my house arrest, it was difficult for me. Because when you talk about yourself, just yourself, you have many pressures from people: why you? There are many people who lose their life, that lose their future. So why should I make myself in the center? But Guy told me, "If you are in the center of the story, it will be more strong." I respected that, but this decision was hard to take. Guy, what made you decide that Emad and his family should be the focus of the film, which separates it from others that have been made about the village of Bi'lin or the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation? Davidi: When he offered me at first to join the project, I actually didn't want to, because I felt, "Why does he need an Israeli?" Because I always will be recognized as an Israeli; you see the challenge right now. And also I imagined that he would have a lot of demonstrations and actions and to create an activist film wasn't appealing. But I remember I was watching one scene that really struck me the first time I saw it. There is an old man blocking a jeep from taking someone to prison. I didn't know who this guy is, so I asked Emad. And he told me, "That's my father, and he is blocking the jeep from taking my brother to prison." For me, that was the moment when I understood him, Emad, as a character, and his role in the demonstrations, what he's been through. When The New York Times reviewed "5 Broken Cameras" last spring, our reviewer described it as "partly a piece of advocacy journalism." Do you accept that assessment? Burnat: Yes, some side is related to journalism and the people who film and capture stories. But it's more related to life, to the village, to the story of normal life. You know, our life is political, so everything is related to the political in our life. You cannot make a film about yourself and just forget the political side, because it's all mixed together.