Ilan Ziv (Directing)

Library Wars: A New Front In America's Cultural Wars

Cultural wars have transformed politics in the US into identity politics dividing the electorate and calcifying political differences and party loyalties. For the past decades, abortion divided the country and the voters. Now it’s public libraries that have been transformed into the new battlefields in America’s cultural wars. How can one explain this seemingly sudden focus on books, in school and public libraries? What is behind this rise in censorship? This film follows four distinct stories that illuminate and explain the evolution of this newest battleground in America’s long culture war.

Release Date:2024-11-13

Department:Directing

Job:Director

State of Terrorism

Before September 11, 2001, only some 400 people had pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda. But now there are tens of thousands of jihadist militants on several continents. Terrorist attacks have multiplied around the world, straining relations between the West, its minority populations and Muslim nations. By violating the democratic values it claimed to be defending, the “War on Terror” launched by George W. Bush’s administration in the wake of 9/11 had the effect of a hammer smashing a vial of mercury. It scattered what had been a limited threat, turning it into a permanent global conflict – one that has provided fertile ground for recruiting jihadists and swelling the ranks of increasingly powerful xenophobic groups in the United States and Europe.

Release Date:2022-09-03

Department:Directing

Job:Director

The Long War: Iran, Israel, USA

Today, Israel and the United States are Iran's enemies par excellence. Their reconciliation seems impossible. Is the history of these three countries the chronicle of a war foretold, delayed for decades but inevitable?

Release Date:2020-11-22

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:2

Vote Count:4

Antisemitism

Director Ilan Ziv traces the origins of antisemitism in France from the Middle Ages to the Dreyfus Affair. Combining personal and collective narratives, Ziv showcases how the depiction of "the Jew" in society established an ideology of hate that eventually led to the Holocaust. In the aftermath of the war, a devastated France continued this ideology of antisemitism that set the stage for a modern wave of anti-Jewish sentiment and attacks, including the murders of Ilan Halimi and Mireille Knoll.

Release Date:2020-01-28

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Vote Count:1

Terrorism: After 9/11

How the war on terror launched by the Bush administration after September 11 has worsened the threat of terrorism.

Release Date:2017-05-23

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:2

Vote Count:2

An Eye for an Eye

A true story of hate, revenge, understanding, remorse and redemption as lived by Mark Stroman on the Texas Death Row.

Release Date:2016-10-28

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Vote Count:6

Capitalism

CAPITALISM is an ambitious and accessible six-part documentary series that looks at both the history of ideas and the social forces that have shaped the capitalist world. Blending interviews with some of the world’s great historians, economists, anthropologists, and social critics with on-the-ground footage shot in twenty-two countries, CAPITALISM questions the myth of the unfettered free market, explores the nature of debt and commodities, and retraces some of the great economic debates of the last 200 years. The series features some of the world’s top economists, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists, including Thomas Piketty, Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Nicholas Phillipson, Kari Polanyi Levitt, David Graeber, and Abraham Rotstein. - icarusfilms.com

Release Date:2014-10-14

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Capitalism

Capitalism has been the engine of unprecedented economic growth and social transformation. With the fall of the communist states and the triumph of "neo-liberalism", capitalism is by far the world's dominant ideology. But how much do we understand about how it originated, and what makes it work?

Release Date:2014-10-14

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Episode Count:6

Vote Count:5

Exile: A Myth Unearthed

This feature documentary looks at new evidence that suggests the majority of the Jewish people may not have been exiled following the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Travelling from Galilee to Jerusalem and the catacombs of Rome, the film asks us to rethink our ideas about an event that has played a critical role in the Christian and Jewish traditions.

Release Date:2012-12-07

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Jesus Politics

After fighting as an Israeli soldier in the 1973 war, and troubled by the nation's obsessive mixing of the Bible with politics, the filmmaker left for America, which he considered a "safe haven" because of its separation between church and state. Thirty-five years later, alarmed by the prominent role of religion in the 2008 American presidential campaign, he decides to make a road trip, to try and understand the phenomenon. Rather than follow the candidates, however, Ziv decides to meet with religious activists supporting the Democratic and Republican candidates. From the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries to Super Tuesday in Oklahoma, JESUS POLITICS shows the efforts of Baptist activists for Obama, Catholics and evangelicals for McCain, Christian conservatives for Huckabee, as well as the political efforts of evangelical organizations such as Christians United for Israel.

Release Date:2008-10-28

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Character:

The Junction

The Junction is an obscure crossroad in the Gaza Strip, separating the Israeli settlement of Nezarim from the Palestinian refugee camp of Nussierat. Ringed by a teeming Palestinian neighborhood, the Junction became a battleground in September 2000 when the Second Intifada erupted. The violence destroyed many lives there, Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers. Once a busy intersection and a flourishing neighborhood, it is now a desert. The film reaches far into the social fabric of both Israelis and Palestinians to explore the culture of death which both stems from and feeds the violence currently consuming both societies.

Release Date:2004-05-14

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Attack of the Happy People

Ecstasy, which started out as a psychotherapeutic drug, acquired the reputation of a happiness pill and thus became one of the most consumed recreational drugs today. Wandering through X culture exposes some surprising links between the subculture of parties, wild sex, consumerism and religion. By pointing the camera on Israel 2003 – war, religious fundamentalism, consumerism and drugs - the film depicts a world in which reality and hallucination are constantly recreating each other in an inseparable and crazy path.

Release Date:2003-01-01

Department:Production

Job:Executive Producer

People Power

An exploration of non-violence as the means to achieving social reforms, focusing on the downfall of Pinochet in Chile, the Palestinian Intifada, and Cory Aquino's "people power" revolution in the Philippines.

Release Date:1989-11-09

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Library Wars

Many in the US and in Europe are stunted by the constant rise of former President Trump in thepolls transforming him, despite his legal problems and role in the January 6th insurrection, into an almost sure nominee of the Republican party in the 2024 elections. It might be the clearest sign of the crisis in the American political system. There are many causes for this crisis, one of them being the cultural wars that transformed politics in the US into identity politics dividing the electorate and calcifying political differences and party loyalties. For the past decades, abortion divided the country and the voters. Recently newer forms of cultural war have emerged, exploiting core identity issues, in places no one could have imagined: American schools and public libraries. The rapid rise of the fight over books from a local initiative into a national phenomenon, the transformation of libraries into new battlefields in the cultural wars is the subject of our film.

Department:Directing

Job:Director