Television broadcasting debuted in Sweden in 1957. And Swedish public broadcaster SVT began covering Israel and Palestine almost from day one.
In ISRAEL PALESTINE ON SWEDISH TV 1958-1989, filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson (The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975) masterfully weaves together some of this footage, telling the story of the rise of the Israeli state and the Palestinian struggle for self-determination — as seen by Swedish media.
For the first decade, SVT coverage is mostly positive. There is a sense of affinity for Israel’s collective efforts in agriculture, housing, medicine, and what is then openly called colonization. But over time the Palestinians move from the sidelines to center stage. There is hope, there is confusion, there is disillusionment and despair.
The film features interviews with key political and military figures, and highlights historic events like the Six Day War, the 1972 Munich Olympic attack, the first Intifada, and the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. But the film also shares more intimate, rarely seen stories. We meet Palestinian resistance fighters training in the desert, a Bedouin Israeli with torn allegiances, idealistic Swedish peacekeepers, and West Bank journalists trying to put out their paper under strict censorship.
Olsson draws on material from a variety of programs — interview shows, investigative reportage, news stories, magazine-style pieces and even children’s programming. The result is an illuminating look at a changing media landscape and the framing of one of the most significant and intractable conflicts of our times.
Note: running time includes a 45 minute intermission
As a primer to the backdrop of the exceptionally bleak current situation, the film is invaluable. [An] illuminating, even-handed magnum opus… Exhaustive in its detail and balanced in its spread of voices.
Wendy Ide, Screen Daily
An astonishing, invaluable document of the history of Israel and Palestine, and a fascinating insight into the complicated nature of journalism.
William Mullally, The National (Abu Dhabi)
A mammoth work on war and the media.
Il Manifesto (Italy)
Göran Hugo Olsson
Pernilla August
Sweden
2025
In English, Arabic, Hebrew and Swedish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Melissa Lindgren
Producer
Tobias Janson
Screenwriter
Göran Hugo Olsson
Editor
Britta Norell
Original Music
Gary Nilsson
Also Playing
Left-Handed Girl
Co-written and edited by Sean Baker (Anora), Shi-Ching Tsou's heartwarming solo feature debut follows a single mom in Taipei who is too consumed with her noodle stand to keep tabs on her five-year-old daughter's burgeoning shoplifting habit.
The Librarians
Dispatches from the front line of America's culture wars (and ours too): librarians speak out about the war against ideas, history, freedom of expression and sexual identity, a campaign in which an open mind is the ultimate enemy.
Caravaggio
In the latest from Exhibition on Screen, co-directors David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky shed light not only on Caravaggio's paintings, but his life, often kept half-hidden in the same chiaroscuro tones he shaded his masterpieces with.
Train Dreams
A lovely, ruminative movie set in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the last century. Robert (Joel Edgerton) is a lumberjack, a taciturn man who comes to appreciate the life slipping between his fingers.