New York Jewish Film Festival

Daniel Schweizer’s WHITE TERROR is a very courageous film that delves into the rise of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Western Europe (primarily Sweden), the United States, and countries of the former Soviet Bloc. Schweizer gained incredible access to leaders and members of these groups in several countries and was able to interview them in depth. In the film he explores links between these different groups which are rooted, frequently, in different ideologies ranging from extreme right wing religious movements to punk music. These diverse groups are however able to come together in the cause of “white power” a notion that seems to hold sway regardless of whether the neo-Nazis are white Americans with a view that their culture is victimized or Russians making Nazi salutes in the Red Square and thus anything but marginalized.

Schweizer’s digs into the rhetoric of these groups, their methods of operation, and how their hate burns. At an early moment in the film, a leader of the Swedish groups responsible for a variety of racist videos talks about the music that has been used to pass the message in extremely business like terms. Just like mtv has a whole package with music and video, their group too has exploited the advent of DVDs to spread their message more effectively. Gone are the days of mere audio cassettes and LPs. Instead, matching the intense hate of the lyrics is gruesome historical footage from the darkest moment of twentieth-century history. These videos are often targeted at high school youth.

The journey that brings Schweizer to Sweden takes him to the United States where neo-Nazis are living in a state of high alert and often practicing a leaderless action policy which gives them the flexibility to act autonomously. Schweizer has made two other films Skin or Die, a documentary, and Skinhead Attitude, a feature film. Some of the people he interviews in White Terror he had already met before. Schweizer also interviews historians and spokespeople of the anti-defamation league, human rights groups, historians, and civil rights activists who shed light on the respective extreme right movements of their respective countries. In the aftermath of the murder of Nikolai Girenko a group of Russian neo-Nazis added more people to their hit list. Schweizer followed up with one such lady who matter-of-factly said she wasn’t going to think about these threats because they would stop her from doing her job which was to fight the “contamination of hatred.”

This contamination of hatred can, indeed, be fought. As Schweizer shows in the story of Tim Zaal an ex-skinhead who now speaks on tolerance and his own transformation. Schweizer tells us that post 9/11 America has become so focused on the outside that we have stopped monitoring what is happening inside, a lengthy part of his documentary is dedicated to showing us what is happening within. When I walked out of the theater I was rather shaken up and somewhat disoriented by fear. But a few blocks of the Upper West Side with smiles from a bunch of faces, none my own race, reminded me that all of us who live here in New York have a lot to be thankful for. Of course there is plenty of racism, walking around Baxter Street in Chinatown a Mexican-American street vendor and a Chinese-American street vendor with carts besides each other were fighting over a client. “Go home to your country” one of them yelled. “You go home to yours” the other retorted.

You can watch White Terror at Lincoln Center on Mon Jan 15@ 8pm or Wed Jan 17 @ 1 or 8:30pm.

Other films showing at the festival include Amos Gitai’s News from Home/News from House. Gitai says early in the film that a documentary film-maker’s job is excavation while that of someone filming fiction is akin to an architect’s. Like Schweizer’s work Gitai’s film too is part of a trilogy. Gitai encounters people who are involved with or have lived in or are living in a specific house. The stories span Palestinian families and Jewish ones. In search of those connected to the original home Gitai travels abroad. Some of the interviews are more fascinating than others. A beautiful Palestinian woman of eighty tells him that she has never worn a veil and that she likes wearing flowers in her hair. I like freedom, she says, don’t you? If you trust a woman she becomes good, she says. And my father trusted me. Gitai allows the different parties on both sides speak for themselves and tries to tell their human story. The result is touching though there are moments that are incredibly sad. Wed Jan 24 @3:30 and 8:15.

For a full schedule click here.