My So-Called Enemy

Six Palestinian and Israeli teenage girls participate in a women’s leadership program that transforms their lives.

Film Signature Image
Series
Global Voices
Premiere Date
July 27, 2014
Length
90 minutes
Producer/Director

Lisa Gossels

Lisa Gossels is an Emmy Award-winning documentarian whose films have garnered multiple awards and honors. Her first feature documentary, The Children of Chabannes, made with Dean Wetherell, won a 2001 Emmy Award, ten film festival awards, had a limited theatrical release, aired on HBO Signature and local PBS stations, and was distributed by Docurama. My So-Called Enemy, Show more Lisa’s second film, has garnered a CINE Golden Eagle and five film festival awards since premiering at Silverdocs in 2010. She was honored as “Someone to Watch” at the 2011 Cleveland International Film Festival, a “Luminary” at the Boston Jewish Film Festival’s 2011 “Luminaries and Legends Gala,” and, in 2012, with the Annual Miller Reel Jewish Woman Filmmaker Award. Lisa is currently traveling around the country with My So-Called Enemy, teaching at high schools and universities and engaging youth, secular, and faith communities in dialogue. She consults with documentarians on all aspects of filmmaking and storytelling, from pre-production through distribution and outreach. She also produces advocacy, promotional, and educational films for clients through her New York City-based company, Good Egg Productions. A member of the Selah Leadership Network, Lisa became a documentarian because she believes in the power of film to effect social change. She has served as a Juror for the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, The Cleveland International Film Festival, The Ivy Film Festival, and The Woodstock Festival – and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University. Show less

Producer

Eden Wurmfeld

Eden Wurmfeld began her producing career in 1994, on her brother Charles Herman-Wurmfeld’s experimental feature Fanci’s Persuasion. She then served as production manager on Doug Liman’s directorial debut Swingers and went on to collaborate with Liman on See Jane Run. Wurmfeld is best known for producing the indie hit Kissing Jessica Stein. After its Show more successful release, she was named one of Variety’s “10 Producers to Watch” and was also a finalist for the IFP’s Indie Spirit Motorola Producers Award. Wurmfeld was awarded UCLA Film School’s Alumni Association Award in 2003, and is producing the family drama Son of A G-Man, written and to be directed by Will Geiger (Ocean Tribe), as well as Adam Corrolla’s film debut The Hammer. She and Herman-Wurmfeld are developing a half-hour comedy pilot with Brillstein-Grey called Bringing Up Mom. Wurmfeld co-authored The IFP West Independent Filmmaker’s Manual (Focal Press), a “cookbook” on how to make an independent film. Show less

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The Film

My So-Called Enemy follows six Palestinian and Israeli teenage girls committed to justice and mutual understanding after participating in a women’s leadership program called Building Bridges for Peace. Emmy Award-winning director Lisa Gossels (The Children of Chabannes) documents how the young women’s transformative experience of knowing their “enemies” as human beings in the United States meets with the realities of their lives back home in the Middle East over the next seven years. Through the coming-of-age narratives of Adi, Gal, Hanin, Inas, Rawan, and Rezan, we see how creating relationships across personal, political and physical borders is a first step towards resolving conflict. My So-Called Enemy presents the complexities of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict through a human lens, and the possibility and hope that come from listening to each other’s stories.

A film about building bridges of understanding in our own communities, My So-Called Enemy offers audiences profound messages about tolerance, inclusion, and respect, about conflict prevention and resolution – and the vital role of women in peacemaking.

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