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In 2002, two filmmakers, the Israeli Eyal Sivan and the Palestinian Michel Khleifi, travelled together on “Route 181”, named after UN resolution 181 of November 1947, which provided for the partitioning of Palestine into separate Arab and Israeli states.

Following the traces of this frontier, which has never really existed but which has created an endless conflict, the two directors travelled their country from south to north and mapped out a human as well as a geographical journey, dubbing the road they travelled “Route 181”.
Men and women, Israeli and Palestinian, civilian and military: we see their faces and hear their voices. We share their experiences and listen to their stories, all intense, and intensely human. In the activities of their daily lives they evoke the material division, but also the moral and spiritual divisions between the two populations and the two societies. The intention – a noble one, of humanity and tolerance – is to oppose the idea that “the only thing that the Israelis and the Palestinians can do together is make war, a war until the other is eliminated.”

Eyal Sivan
was born in Haifa in 1964. He grew up in Jerusalem, and moved to France in 1985, where he has made numerous documentaries and short films. His film about Palestinian refugees forced to leave their homeland, “Aqabat Jaber, vie de passage”, has received much critical praise. Together with Roy Brauman he published Éloge de la désobéissance (Éditions Le Pommier – Fayard, 1999).

Michel Khleifi
was born in 1950 in Nazareth, in Galilee. He studied theatre at the Institut National Supérieur Des Arts Du Spectacle (INSAS) in Brussels, where he currently lives and teaches cinema. His work has received numerous awards. His film “Noces en Galilée” (“Wedding in Galilee”) won the Critics’ International Prize at Cannes and the Concha de Oro at San Sebastian in 1987.