Recognized

Director: Ori Kleiner
Israel & USA 2007 61 mins
Language: Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles

Bedouin usually appear in the Israeli collective consciousness as either ‘ethnographic’ or ‘demographic’ issues. Their representation by means of various objects ‘coffee, camels, tents, carpets’ prevents most Israelis from seeing Bedouin as people with wishes and wills, frustrations and fears; as possessing not only a past, but also a future.

Filmed entirely on location in the Negev desert in the summer of 2006 Recognized is made up of documentary moments that trace the uprooted experiences of individuals struggling with their identity as Bedouins and with their status as equal citizens of the state.