My First War

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• 2008
• 1 hr 22 mins
• Documentary

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In the summer of 2006, at the age of 28, I was suddenly drafted as a reserves soldier in the Second Lebanese War. Instinctively, I grabbed my video camera and thread a shoelace, securing it around my neck right next to my rifle. I said to myself this camera will be a tool with which to mediate between myself and the reality into which I was thrown - the reality of war. I was part of an artillery Regiment. As days went by, I understood that this war is not as it was planned. Mixed orders, more and more dead soldiers; mess and disorder came to be the words describing this war. And as long as this war evolved, bringing more chaos and destruction, I continued to use my camera and shoot. I film the faces of soldiers, exhausted and overwhelmed. I heard the soldier's desire to tell their story - to talk about what they have seen. The feelings were of a pointlessness war and a strong and clear failure. Months after the war ends, I was compelled to find the individuals who served with me. Those I followed during the war. Those I met accidentally while wandering, and whose faces and souls were burnt into my mind. They are my principal obsession and characters of the film. I followed them in their daily life. They recall the images of this war and how they currently relate to them. My characters and I went to this war naïve with a definite purpose. We woke up, shaken, in shock, with doubts and regrets. Each one of us, those who survived, paid a price.