What Israelis call the 1948 War of Independence, Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or the Catastrophe. In Alon Schwarz’s explosive documentary, we follow Teddy Katz, who wrote an acclaimed graduate thesis about a possible massacre by Israeli Defense Forces in Tantura only to see his research thwarted. Did a massacre take place? Was there a government cover-up?
When Teddy Katz, a graduate student at the University of Haifa, submits his thesis, involving dozens of hours of interviews with soldiers and victims, it was approved with acclaim. Then, Israeli authorities, along with former soldiers of the Alexandroni Brigade, some of whom may have committed atrocities, worked to destroy his reputation and keep the information from going public. Using Katz’s recordings, and interviews with the elderly soldiers and Palestinian survivors, director Alon Schwarz crafts a shocking film, exposing just how far a country will go to create alternative realities. As much a story of the massacre as how a nation shapes its image, Tantura is at once “[i]nfuriating [and] jaw-dropping.” –Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com
Director Biography
Growing up in Israel, Alon Schwarz served in the military and went on to a career as a serial entrepreneur in the tech industry, before embarking on a career in filmmaking. His first feature documentary, Aida’s Secrets (2016), screened at the 2017 MSPIFF. Tantura (2022) is his second feature.
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