September 14, 2007 - Filmmaker Eve Shpak's documentary film Light to All Nations takes a unique approach to a subject we've all unfortunately grown accustomed to seeing on the nightly news. Shpak's using her documentary to focus on how individuals affected by guerilla warfare/terrorism cope with fear and trauma. While stories of bloodshed and destruction make front page news, not much attention is ever focused on how the people directly affected by bombings and other acts of violence pick themselves up and get on with their lives. Shpak's goal is to provide an upclose and personal look at the recovery process which is all but ignored by the media.
Shpak traveled to Israel to shoot Light to All Nations, funding the project on her own. Shpak was fortunate enough to have a film crew made up of people who donated their time to the project. While in the midst of shooting, Shpak took time out to discuss her documentary and why she felt compelled to focus on recovery as the subject of her film.
Why is now the right time for you to tell this story?
“Because, one, the U.S. and the Western world in general have just encountered guerilla warfare or let’s just say any attack on their land in a long, long time. We are not used to being the actual frontlines. I don’t think that the U.S. or most Western countries are actually prepared for any of these attacks. Israel deals with this on a daily basis so I thought that since, number one, we bring them in to teach them many different types of tactics, I think that one of the tactics they teach us that maybe hasn’t been covered is actually how to deal with these situations on a personal level.”
That’s true. We see the bombings but we don’t see the recovery process.
“That’s something that we’re going to be exploring in the film. Some of our experts are psychologists and trauma specialists and historians and we’ll be asking questions about the media. One of the things we want to find out is how much of what’s delivered to people in the news, for instance, is what the people want and how much of it is just given to us and we have to accept what’s on the television.”
The real question is, is it true that humans crave negativity and disaster? Are we uninterested in what is positive and happy? Or is it easier? I mean, even if you were to look at…let’s pick something that Hollywood knows very well… You look at films, and most of the nominations go to dramas. Why is it so hard for a comedy to win? Is comedy silly? Is laughing silly? Is that not something we truly appreciate as humorous? And what happened to that? Where are the positive films? And that’s also one of the things that I want to do with this film is I don’t want to make another documentary that covers the trauma and there are no solutions. All that does is instill more fear and more conspiracy theories and really doesn’t do anything for anybody. If you want to tell us about what the situation is no matter what, be it environmental or warfare or someone’s personal experience, if there is nothing to learn from it or if there isn’t a solution that comes out of it, at some point you’ve left us sort of hanging. I want to deliver solutions. At least some, possibly, and I’m not saying that there is one.”
How long have you been thinking about making this documentary?
“Three and a half years ago I was here for one of my cousin’s wedding. I came here from Croatia and I had just shot a documentary on endangered dolphins so I was kind of in movie mode. And I showed up with all my equipment in hand, here to see a wonderful wedding, and I started hearing lots of stories. Israel is just sort of coming out of the bus bombing section of time. Many people told me stories about a long time ago. One woman told me a story about someone she lost when she was 18 who she believed was her soul mate. And that story really touched me, that before she told me that story for two hours she sat and told me jokes. She was laughing, and everything was comedy. I said, ‘Wow, what an amazing person.’ She’s lost something that most people would consider was the most important thing in their life - someone they actually believe is their ultimate soul mate and at such a young age. She really got very little time with him and her life went on and she is so happy.
I thought, ‘Okay, I want to make a documentary.’ I have many documentaries I’d like to make. This is on the forefront of every newspaper: this war. Well this place is so dark, I thought why don’t we go there and find what we can learn from them, because in all this darkness, they must have something to teach us. You get here and life is completely normal. You wonder how they’ve moved on from every bus bombing and terror explosion.
Life goes on and this city of Tel Aviv never stops living. It’s 24 hours. It’s like a miniature New York City. There are cafes outside; it’s hot at night, hundreds of people outside all night long drinking in cafes and singing and tons of loud music. They’re huge in the techno-world and they’re innovative in so many ways you can’t believe it. This is like being in London. This is like being in New York, but it has a little like French touch to it and a little bit of Mid-Eastern touch to it. It’s all kind of mixed up and you realize when you get here that this place is just like the U.S. or like any other Western country where it’s a melting pot for people from all over the world. The difference is that all these people came from all these other places where they already worked through some awful traumatic experience. They come here and they go through it again, but they’re fighters. Regardless of whether you think someone’s right or someone’s wrong, they’re survivors. And they really have a million different stories to tell.”
