Documentary uncovers Lubya, The Village Under The Forest

Directed by Emmy-winner Mark J Kaplan and written and narrated by scholar and author Heidi Grunebaum, The Village Under The Forest unfolds as a personal meditation from the Jewish diaspora.

Metaphors, memories, meaning

Using the forest and the village ruins as metaphors, the documentary explores themes related to the erasure and persistence of memory and dares to imagine a future in which dignity, acknowledgement and co-habitation become shared possibilities in Israel/Palestine.

Grunebaum had visited South Africa Forest on a youth programme in the mid-1980s. Along with many other South African Jews, she had even placed her coins in Jewish National Fund (JNF) blue boxes to help fund the pine forest.

So when, on a return visit in 2009, she discovered that the ruins of the destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya lay hidden beneath South Africa Forest, she felt like the rug was pulled from under her feet: "I could not have imagined that trees were used to erase the lives or the presence of the people who had lived there," she says. "For many Jewish people in the diaspora, the JNF and tree planting in Israel has become a central and important cultural expression of Jewish identity. Through first- and third-person narrative voices, the film explores the painfully interwoven histories of the forest and of the village, examining what it may mean to be accountable to both histories."

The Village Under The Forest will screen at The Fugard in Cape Town on 10 June 2013 at 6.30pm and at The Bioscope in Johannesburg on 15 June 2013 at 8pm.

You can watch the trailer here:

For further information, go to www.villageunderforest.com or www.encounters.co.za.