“Who but When, How," an autobiographical project by award-winning filmmaker and UC Merced Professor Yehuda Sharim, premieres May 11 at the Ethnocineca international documentary film festival in Vienna, Austria.
The film is an intimate contemplation of Sharim’s childhood home in Israel, where visits with his aging father are juxtaposed with the conflict and violence engulfing the Middle East.
“I don’t recognize the country of my birth, and it does not recognize me,” Sharim said. “There, I visit my father, who cannot remember my name. They are both changing forever, disappearing, refusing to be embraced.”
“Who but When, How” is on a short list for Ethnocineca’s Excellence in Visual Anthropology Award.
A grant from the Henry Luce Foundation provided funding for the film.
Ethnocineca is an eight-day festival dedicated to documentary and ethnographic films. It has been a part of the domestic and international film festival calendar since 2007.
Sharim, a professor of media and performance studies, said he hopes the film can help Muslim and Jewish people in Israel and the Palestinian territories find common ground to share their feelings of loss.
“Here, cinema does what governments and army generals cannot foresee – creating a meeting space for deep listening, understanding and compassion in a world bleaker with each passing day,” he said.
