A film by Yun Suh - City of Borders

A film by Yun Suh
USA 2009/ Color/ 66 minutes
World Premiere at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival
Winner of Special Teddy (Audience) Award at Berlin International Film Festival
Official Selection
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival
Seattle International Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, Nantucket Film Festival,
Era New Horizons Film Festival (Poland), Tokyo International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, Frameline Film Festival (San
Francisco), Outfest Film Festival (Los Angeles), Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Boston LGBT Film Festival,
NewFest Film Festival (New York), Out at the Movies (New York), Outview Film Festival (Athens, Greece) – Opening
Night, Portland Queer Doc Film Festival – Opening Night, Queer Movie Nights (Halle, Germany)
Press and Distribution Contact:
Yun Suh
001 (510) 295-7588
playbigger@gmail.com
www.cityofborders.com (check for media coverage)

SYNOPSIS
“When I read in the bible that I could be killed for being gay,
I understood what it was like to be Palestinian.”
– Israeli bar patron.
In the heart of Jerusalem stands an unusual symbol of unity that defies generations of segregation,
violence and prejudice: a gay bar called Shushan. City of Borders goes inside this vibrant
underground sanctuary on the East/West border of the Holy City, where people of opposing
nationalities, religions and sexual orientations create a community among people typically viewed as
each other’s “enemy.”
City of Borders follows the daily lives of the Israeli bar owner and four Israeli and Palestinian patrons
as they navigate the minefield of politics, religion and discrimination to live and love openly. Set
against the construction of the separation wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories and the
struggle for a gay pride parade in Jerusalem, these four inter-woven stories reveal the contradictions
and complexity of the struggle for acceptance.
STORY
“Everyone comes from their own ghetto and meets at Shushan,” says the bar owner Sa’ar Netanel, a
secular Israeli and Jerusalem’s first openly gay city council member. Shushan, Jerusalem’s only gay
bar, was born out of his struggle for gay visibility and ethnic diversity. His outspokenness has earned
Sa’ar the respect and gratitude of the gay community as well as numerous death threats.
For devout Muslim Palestinian, Boody, going to Shushan means endangering his life in an illegal
nighttime border crossing from the West Bank to Jerusalem. He creeps under razor wire; scales
cement walls and dodges Israeli soldiers in order to reach the only place where he feels free to fully
express himself. At home in Ramallah, he has become the target of many death threats as the first drag
queen of Palestine.
Former Israeli soldier, Adam Russo, dances shirtless on stage, displaying visible scars on his chest and
arms. In 2005, he was stabbed by an Orthodox Jew while marching at the head of Jerusalem’s gay
pride parade. Being a victim of a hate crime has ignited his political purpose to fight for human rights.
His activism for equal rights gets questioned when he and his partner build a home on a contested
settlement land.
On the dance floor, a Palestinian Israeli, Samira Saraya, kisses her Jewish Israeli lesbian lover, Ravit
Geva. They met at a hospital where Samira works as a nurse and Ravit as a doctor. Their union
breaks two of Middle Eastern society’s biggest taboos: same-sex relations and intimacy between Jews
and Arabs. Ironically, these barriers have drawn them closer together, but isolated them from their
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families. Their relationship complicates over the issue of starting a family of their own, which ignites
their differences in their religious, cultural and personal values.
Outside of the bar, Jewish, Muslim and Christian fundamentalists, in a rare show of solidarity, strive to
eliminate all demonstrations of gay identity through riots and death threats.
City of Borders concludes by showing what each participant has gained from being a member of the
Shushan community and the effects of this singular bar upon their lives, inspiring each to move beyond
its walls to create a different place of belonging for him or herself. In observing the patrons’ daily
fight for dignity and their very existence, this extremely relevant and inspiring documentary highlights
the bond forged when people from warring worlds embrace what they share in common rather than be
divided by their differences.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
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The concept for “City of Borders” began in 2002 while I was producing a series of radio reports in
Jerusalem and the West Bank on the clashes during the second Palestinian Intifada or uprising. I’m
drawn to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because I intimately understand both sides of the war. Like the
Israelis, I grew up in constant fear of my neighboring country, North Korea, coming to attack my small
village and family in South Korea. I did not see North Koreans as humans but as demons determined
to kill me if they had the chance. My childhood playtime often involved devising escape routes and
places to hide in my home if North Koreans ever invaded. Like the Palestinians, I understand the
horror and hardships of living under occupation through my parents who survived the Japanese
colonization of Korea. Being on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza, I witnessed the daily
devastating impact of the Israeli occupation.
Finding a bar where Israelis and Palestinians take great risks to meet and connect as human beings
amid all the distrust, death and violence renewed my faith in our shared humanity. Sa’ar Netanel’s
vision for his bar where people from different worlds can find common ground and be accepted,
mirrors my purpose for making films. Therefore, I chose this story as the topic of my first featurelength
film despite daunting barriers of budget, bombs, language and culture,.
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/WRITER/CINEMATOGRAPHER’S BIO
Yun Suh’s love of visual storytelling sparked at age 8 when she immigrated to Connecticut from South
Korea without knowing a word of English. Television and movies became her most important
classroom where she learned the language and the American culture. But without role models, she
didn’t think being a filmmaker was a career possibility. She studied to become a doctor to fulfill her
mother’s dream and kept her passion for film hidden. Her life took a big turn when her mother died
during her last year of college. Believing that her mother’s death was caused by her inability to fully
express herself, Suh devoted her life to true communication and self-expression.
After earning a biology degree from University of California, Berkeley, Suh landed jobs in radio and
broadcast television news, where she worked the past eight years, and produced documentary shorts in
her spare time. She has extensively covered news on the Middle East and has reported from Israel,
West Bank and Gaza Strip. Her nominations include Best Radio Documentary from the National
Federation of Community Broadcasters for her one-hour long radio report, Sabra & Shatilla (2003), on
the survivors of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps. She has also received a
local Emmy nomination for producing a news feature, Comfort Women (2001), a story of an illiterate
Korean woman who uses her paintings to break her 50-year silence about being forced into sexual
slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. In 2002, she earned the Support,
Training and Access for New Directors (STAND) grant from the Film Arts Foundation to pursue her
lifelong dream of being a filmmaker.
FILMMAKING TEAM
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Editor: Jean Kawahara won a 2002 National Emmy for editing the feature-length documentary, Of
Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story, which was also short-listed for the 2001
Academy Awards. Other credits include the award-winning documentary, Yank Tanks; the
independent feature film, Nail Polish; and the Sundance selection shorts, Rappin’ Gap and Undertaker,
which earned a National CableACE award. Jean has also received numerous awards for her
commercial work, including a Golden Lion at the Cannes Film Festival and a Clio.
Primary Cinematographer/Co-Producer: Karin Thayer is an award-winning filmmaker and video
journalist who has been producing, shooting and editing stories for 15 years worldwide, in locations
from Brussels to Dubai. Her short films such as Seed (1997) have screened internationally, including
at the Sundance Film Festival. Thayer’s recent clients include: Oxygen Media, the Discovery
Channels, the History Channel, the Travel Channel and the BBC. She earned the 2005 Concentra
European Video Journalism award for producing the BBC TV series, Addiction.
Cinematographer: Robin McKenna has worked as a video journalist for CBC programs, including
the feature-length documentary Minority Report and directed observational series for Life Network,
Oxygen, and Living UK. She served as a cinematographer for numerous documentaries including The
Take (American Film Institute Award for Best Documentary 2004) and The Great War Experience,
which aired on CBC.
Cinematographer: Amir Terkel is an Israeli filmmaker and news videographer with over 10 years of
experience shooting in domestic and international news stations in Israel and the United States,
including CNN and ABC in Jerusalem. He has explored the Israeli-Palestinian relations as a
cinematographer through several in-depth current affairs programs and feature documentaries, such as
Holy Land Common Ground, Occupied Minds, and Other Voices from Israel and Palestine.
Co-Producer: Simone Nelson has worked with international, award winning artists and companies to
develop and produce film, theater, music and digital media productions, projects and events for over 17
years. She has worked with or for, among others: the former head of Walt Disney Studios—Peter
Schneider; filmmaker Rebecca Miller; Forensic Films; Film Arts Foundation; Mill Valley Film
Festival; San Francisco Opera; and London’s Shakespeare Globe and Royal Court Theatres. She is
currently the President of Bay Area Women in Film and Television and is Consulting Producer on
Saltwater, a narrative feature in pre-production.
CAST
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35-year-old secular Israeli bar owner SA’AR NETANEL is the first openly gay man to be elected
into public office in Jerusalem. He was elected to serve on the Jerusalem city council in 2003, the
same year that he opened the Holy City’s only gay bar, Shushan. His vision to create a place that
“belongs to everyone in the community and where everyone is welcome” has provided a home for
many who have nowhere else to go. After 16 years of struggling for gay rights against a conservative
religious local government, he questions whether he can continue to fight in the face of mounting
violence and death threats.
19-year-old devout Muslim Palestinian BOODY risks his life to go to Shushan
because there is no public place for gay men to gather in his West Bank hometown
of Ramallah. He performed his first drag queen show on Arab night at Shushan
and has earned fans among people who would typically be viewed as his “enemy”
outside of the bar. Despite being harassed all his life for being too flamboyant and
feminine, Boody has developed deep pride in himself, particularly through his faith in Allah. He is the
first drag queen of Palestine, thereby unwittingly making himself a target. Forced to leave his beloved
country to flee persecution, Boody starts a new life in a small town in Ohio, United States.
19-year-old secular Israeli ADAM RUSSO never wants to leave Givat Ze’ev, a
small settlement north of Jerusalem, where everyone knows him as a fun-loving
young man and also as a victim of a hate crime. While marching at the head of
Jerusalem’s gay pride parade in 2005, he was stabbed three times by a Haredi
Jewish man. He is a media spokesperson for gay pride and refuses to hide his
identity. Despite his fears of being attacked again, he continues to march in the city that he loves. He
and his partner AMIT recently built a home together in the settlement where Adam was raised and
plan to perform a civil union in Israel in 2009.
31-year-old Palestinian Israeli SAMIRA SARAYA has lived with her 33-yearold
Jewish Israeli lesbian lover, RAVIT GEVA for more than four years. Their
relationship breaks two of Middle Eastern society’s biggest taboos: same-sex
relations and intimacy between Jews and Arabs. The unlikely lovers met at an
Israeli hospital where Samira works as a nurse and Ravit as a doctor. Despite their
clashing backgrounds and personalities, they have risked everything to stay together, including their
relationships with their families. Samira and Ravit test their union as Ravit plans to have a child and
seeks a sperm donor. Raised in a violent household with 13 other siblings, Samira never wanted to
have kids. Relying on faith, Ravit moves forward with her plans to get pregnant and hopes Samira will
join her.
CREDITS
Producer, Director, Writer: Yun Suh
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Editor: Jean Kawahara
Additional Editing: Eric Ladenburg, Yun Suh, Ryan Shake
Co-Producers: Karin Thayer, Simone Nelson
Primary Cinematographer: Karin Thayer
Cinematographer: Robin McKenna
Additional Cinematography: Amir Terkel, Yun Suh
Sound: Yun Suh
Original Music: Shranny, Musa Hanhan, Jonathan Zalben, Ronen Landa
Associate Producers: Amir Terkel, Adam Rosenberg
Post Production Sound: Berkeley Sound Artists—James LeBrecht, Patti Tauscher, Dan Olmsted,
Alex Wilmer
Color Correction & Mastering Services: Max Salomon
Graphics: Courtney Booker
Advisors: Justine Shapiro, Deborah Hoffmann, Vicente Franco, Janis Plotkin
Translators: Shimrit Berman, Omar Fekeiki, Amir Sappir, Merav Rozenblum, Amir Terkel
Funders: ITVS, Center for Asian American Media, Pacific Pioneer Fund, Film Arts Foundation
Development Fund, Fleishhacker Foundation
“City of Borders” is a co-production of Yun Suh and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), in
association with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), with funding provided by the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)
TELEVISION BROADCAST
CITY OF BORDERS is expected to broadcast on PBS in the United States nationwide. Air dates are
TBA.
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