In Issa Freij’s beautiful, elegiac cinema verité documentary short, The Last Supper, the viewer is invited to experience the construction of Israel’s Separation Wall as it happened, live, from villagers’ kitchens and doorsteps in Abu Dis, a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
As the 20-foot-high monstrosity is installed, we see the slow but inexorable defacement of a landscape and a community that will now be isolated from Jerusalem.
The villagers’ stoic resignation to their fate is evident. They poignantly bid farewell to their scenic views and their neighbors, who will soon be unreachable on the other side of the wall.
A powerful testament to the experience of living through this transformative, traumatic, and wrenching period.