Chronicle of a Kidnap

On July 12, 2006, Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were kidnapped by Hezbollah, an event that triggered the second Lebanon war. This is the story of the families left behind and their struggle to bring their loved ones home, told with the deft hand and keen eye of documentarian Nurit Kedar (Wasted, SFJFF 2007; Borders, SFJFF 2007). Politicians’ empty promises, the conflict between individual desires and government calculations of “cost effectiveness,” and the necessity to, in the words of the families’ media consultant, “sell sorrow and market pain,” add layers of complexity. The heroine, however, is Karnit Goldwasser, Ehud’s wife, who lobbies and speaks out tirelessly. As she rides her bicycle along the border trying to find signs, any way to overcome the obstacles to the soldiers’ return, Karnit, like Marianne Pearl, refuses to give up, maintaining her faith that one day she will wake up from the nightmare.