Borders (1999)

Overview

A riveting documentary that puts a human face on the neighbors who live alongside Israel’s 1,171 kilometers of borders. The film deftly explores the political, cultural and geographical divisions that separate Israelis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians and Palestinians from one another. Some of these borders are peaceful and quiet; others are fraught with fear. But the people who live and work near the borders—an Israeli soldier who “adopts” an Arab family, a Druze bride who leaves her family in the Golan to marry in Lebanon (the real-life story behind Riklis’s Syrian Bride), or the Lebanese merchant importing luxury goods from Israel into Southern Lebanon we will meet again in Lebanon Dream—navigate these artificial boundaries with a combination of emotional and physical effort.