Where Olive Trees Weep
Sebastopol filmmakers Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo’s new documentary shines light on Palestinian suffering
Editor’s Note: Two Sebastopol filmmakers have made a documentary about the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli Government. They debuted this film to a sold-out house at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts last week. This is local news. However the editors of the Sebastopol Times reject the notion, implied by this film, that the majority of Israelis are not indigenous to Palestine. (Please see the director’s refutation of this perception in the comments below.) Because Jews were repeatedly removed, killed or chased out of the land of Israel—by the Babylonians, by the Romans, by invading Muslims, by European Crusaders—and forced into exile doesn’t make them any less indigenous to the land they were driven from. There are two indigenous peoples in Palestine, both of whom claim sovereignty over the entire region—river to the sea. The current crisis flows from that historical fact.
When Sebastopol locals Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo filmed Palestinians in Israel and occupied territories in 2022 for a docuseries about the effects of colonization on indigenous people worldwide, they had no idea just how poignant their footage would become a scant 18 months later. But their efforts gained extra significance with the events of Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing Israel-Hamas War, which have taken a tragic toll on human life and caused untold suffering in the region.
According to Statista.com, which publishes “insights and facts across 170 industries and 150+ countries,” as of March 14, 2024, around 1,200 Israelis died and 5,431 were injured on Oct. 7, 2023, and since then 35,091 Palestinians have been killed and 78,827 injured in Gaza as a result of the Israel-Hamas War. UNICEF’s website states that as of March 19, 2024, more than 13,000 Gazan children alone had died.
While dissenting opinions about the politics and ethics of the conflict continue to spark outrage and protest around the world, the Benazzo’s documentary, “Where Olive Trees Weep,” focuses solely on the human hardship and suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.
Per the movie’s website, the couple states, “We deliberately chose to listen to and center the voices of the underrepresented, the oppressed, the colonized, the dehumanized, the underdogs that many Western audiences rarely get a chance to hear or connect with on a human level.”
The Benazzos initially set out to film an episode of their new project, a series called The Eternal Song, in Palestine. Their three-week tour in May and June 2022 began at a workshop led by Dr. Gabor Maté for Palestinian women healing from trauma caused by their experiences in Israeli jails, and led them to Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and the occupied territory of the West Bank.
The stories and resilience of the Palestinians the Benazzos met affected them deeply. “[E]very human being we met has a story to share of oppression and injustice,” Zaya said.
Though repeatedly warned about the dangers that would befall them in Palestine by “the resistance” before they embarked on the trip, they found the opposite to be true. “The only threat that we felt was actually not from Palestinians,” Maurizio said. “There was not ever a sense of feeling unsafe. But at every checkpoint we crossed, we felt unsafe—and we are white people. We were stopped once, maybe. When they [Israeli soldiers] see you how you look, they just let you go because you don’t look Palestinian.”
When the events of Oct. 7, 2023 and the ensuing Israel-Hamas conflict erupted, the Benazzos realized their film footage presented background context to the unfolding tragedy and decided to release it as a standalone movie in hopes it would help further the cause of justice and peace for Palestine, and healing for the greater region.
In presenting the testimonies of Palestinian journalist and therapist Ashira Darwish, grassroots activist Ahed Tamimi and Israeli journalist Amira Hass among others, the film unveils multiple horrors, some videotaped: children slapped and beaten by Israeli soldiers, a young man dying from a gunshot wound delivered by Israeli forces, Israeli bulldozers razing Palestinian houses without warning, Gazan buildings exploding from Israeli bomb and missile strikes, the Gaza–Israel barrier—a.k.a. “The Iron Wall”—itself, stories of children and adults being arbitrarily fined, beaten, detained, evicted from their land, maimed and tortured, and more.
As Palestinians tell account after account of the oppression they are constantly subjected to, the extent of the terror state they live in becomes evident.
The film concludes with the concept of “Justice first, then peace.”
On the movie’s website, the Benazzos explain their stance with the words, “We believe that the minimum requirements are equal rights for all, acknowledgment of the trauma of the Palestinian people over the last 75 years, and letting go of partisan narratives of victimization and blame.”
Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo have met with backlash since they first began talking about the movie late last year. “We receive an average of 100 hate mails per week, and we take care to answer each and every one of them, one by one. And we lost about 50,000 people from our mailing list,” Maurizio said.
When the movie premiered to a full house on June 6 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, the couple summed up the essence of its humanitarian message with the words, “We want children to stop dying.”
In addition to being filmmakers, the Benazzos run the organization Science And Nonduality (SAND), which offers films, lectures and conferences. The SAND website describes itself as ‘a place for an open-hearted, authentic connection with people who are drawn together to find out what it means to be a human being, standing at the intersection of spiritual inquiry, science, social healing, and the arts.” Find out more about this organization here.
“Where Olive Trees Weep” is now available for streaming, by donation, at whereolivetreesweep.com. An online 21-day event with daily speakers runs through June 27. In addition, the film will begin screening nationally and internationally on June 20, and an in-person screening will take place June 25 at 3:30 p.m. in Oakland, with Dr. Gabor Maté, Ashira Darwish and the directors present.
 | A guest post by
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Dear Editor,
We must address a misrepresentation in the note preceding our film. The note falsely implies that we stated Jews were not an indigenous population in that region historically. This is completely inaccurate - we never made such a claim, neither in the film nor in person!.
The factual reality we presented is that for thousands of years, multiple indigenous populations have lived side by side in that land, including Jews, Arabs, Christians, and first and foremost the ancient Canaanites who are considered the original indigenous inhabitants that Arabs and Jews both descended from.
Our film and statements in no way denied or dismissed the indigenous roots of the Jewish people in that region. We explicitly acknowledged that Jews were one of the indigenous peoples who had inhabited that land for millennia alongside other indigenous groups.
The colonial Zionist movement of European Jews settling in historic Palestine and dispossessing the local Arab population and establishing an apartheid state is a separate issue from the indigenous status of Jews and other groups who had already been present.
Perpetuating misinformation on such a nuanced topic undermines efforts towards greater understanding of the complex history and demographics. We want to ensure the factual reality we aimed to convey in our film is properly represented.
Thank you!
Maurizio Benazzo
Thanks for emphasizing the Jews are indigenous to the Israeli area.