The Devil’s Drivers

Director’s statement:

THE DEVIL'S DRIVERS deals with people who suffer under a situation of imprisonment, but they have discovered a way out, even if only on a temporary basis. Imprisonment and being forced to work in dangerous jobs as a way to survive are the two central topics of our documentary work. We feel attracted to people who live in situations of moral ambiguity - committing crimes as a way to earn the money needed for the survival of their families, living constantly on the edge, searching for liberty, always in fear of being caught and punished with prison. Regarding the situation of Palestine today with its political stalemate we can't imagine a future without an eight meters high wall surrounding me. It makes us believe that constant imprisonment has become the Palestinian destiny. In this sense our characters appear as modern-day versions of the ancient Greek figure of Prometheus who rebelled against the powerful and found himself chained to a rock as an eternal punishment. We developed a method of working in which we never interfere with the plans of our characters and strictly follow what they are doing, without directing them or giving them behavioural guidelines. This gives my images a very authentic quality full of raw and intense emotions. But this method also requires a lot of patience because we never know where and when a day of shooting will end. Often a working day can take up to twenty hours and may end at a completely different place. We discovered the smugglers by accident when researching a film about the Bedouin villages in the Jemba area which are in danger of being evicted by the Israeli army. The taxi got stuck at the end of a road where the asphalt ended and suddenly Ismael appeared in a cloud of dust offering us a ride in his tuned Subaru. We were very impressed by his sense of liberty – even though the smugglers work for money they appeared to me as Palestinian heroes. A group of five drivers move around 200 workers over the border every day. That makes over 3.000 workers a month. Imagining that every worker has a wife and three kids and possibly parents, brothers or sisters to feed - that makes more than 15.000 people depending on the money they earn. Obviously, the smugglers are playing an important, yet for most people unknown role in Palestinian economy and society. This film is a lot about speed, action and danger, but also about the moral obligations to help. Basically it is about a group of 21st century Robin Hoods knowing that any day could be their last. A bullet or prison cell waiting just around the corner. I show men who are strong and full of passion, intelligent and pragmatic in their ways, but also full of anger and frustration. They are multi-faced: good and bad, loving fathers and raging gangsters. We as a group of filmmakers with Palestinian and German backgrounds don't believe in portraying Palestinians as victims. For us they are first and foremost ordinary people trying to manage a living for themselves and their families in a highly difficult environment. That makes them heroes in their own ways, maybe even anti-heroes – but never victims. They are masters of their own decisions and fight with their own means against a world of injustice surrounding them. They are genius drivers and if they would have been born in Europe or America they would have become for sure champion drivers. But inn their world these possibilities don't exist so they are what they are: ordinary people and non-violent resistance fighters.