RULE OF STONE

During the  1967 war Israel conquered East Jerusalem, including the Old City, where the Western Wall and the Temple Mount are located. A few years later, the city was declared the united and indivisible capital of the State of Israel. The political goal became to make a re-division of the city materially impossible.

Since then, nothing has changed diplomatically: Israel continues to consider all of Jerusalem an integral part of its territory; the Palestinians, supported by much of the international community, demand an end to the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. What has changed radically is the configuration of the city: since 1967, Israel has implemented a series of actions, projects and policies aimed at expanding the Jewish presence in the eastern areas of the city, which until then had been inhabited exclusively by the Palestinian  population. Architecture and draconian city planning are the main weapons in this silent but extraordinarily effective colonization and dispossession process of East Jerusalem.This film is about the aesthetics of dominance and control. 

Rule of Stone exposes how important it is to think critically about the moral and aesthetic choices located in specific historical, political, and cultural architectures and to think critically about the sets of omissions, uncertainties and intentions that are often obscured within the mapping of a body politic. It is my hope to  demonstrate why architecture remains vital in the attempts for dominance and an obstacle for just existence for Palestinians and Israelis.

I was born in Jerusalem, today I live in Montreal, Canada. I began work on this film in the summer of 2018. At home, architecture has always been a point of discussion. My father and I would often talk about the city in architectural terms. There was something about the built environment that always pointed to unspoken truths; it was as if architecture and space were the most visceral expression of colonial expansion and the abuse of human rights. Not the architects themselves, but rather the way in which spaces were formed and created both as a collective and as an expression of personal taste in ideological forms. Jerusalem Stone has always been a “sacred cow”and nobody ever contested its beauty, its magic, its importance in the aesthetic quality of the city - it was exactly from this place of aesthetics that I wanted to tell the story  of oppression and injustice.  

October 7th 2023 and the War on Gaza started  while I was editing this film. At first I questioned myself if the film would change, the pressure of the events was overwhelming, how could I shout louder against all this brutality? I also wondered:  was this going to resonate in the midst of all that was going on? I decided not to change the film’s original structure, as  its importance now became evident, in giving some historical context to the present conflict and facing one of its core problems: Jerusalem . As one of my main characters say” We have to look carefully at buildings, they are not just stupid objects. Architecture claims that it is not military, we are not part of the war of this conflict , we are coming after. There is the visible violence and there is the invisible violence of architecture. We don't see what has been destroyed and we don't see the taking over of the lands, what we do see is the act of appropriating building traditions from the very culture that you just occupied.” Zvi Efrat.  With its quiet and persistent voice I hope this film expands the discourse and the understanding of this terribly bloody and unjust  reality through the prism of what comes after destruction.  

Danae Elon has been living and working as a director and producer in Montreal Quebec for the last ten years. Born in Israel her films  have been an attempt to tell stories about the Occupation through a deeply personal point of view. Every film she has made has tried  to search for truth, hypocrisy and injustice through intimate storytelling often focusing on her own family and the city she grew up in: Jerusalem. Danae’s films have showcased internationally in many renowned film festivals receiving numerous awards.

One of Canada’s leading and most active film and television producers. Among numerous other awards, he has won a Genie Award for Best Motion Picture for the Oscar-nominated LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLEVILLE. His more recent documentaries include:  P.S. JERUSALEM (TIFF 2016, Berlin 2017), THE SETTLERS (Sundance 2017). A SISTER’S SONG (DocNYC, IDFA, DocAviv, RIDM), GAZA( SUNDANCE 2019); ADVOCATE (SUNDANCE 2019). THE LONGEST GOODBYE (SUNDANCE 2023) and I SHALL NOT HATE (CPH:DOX 2024)