Raging Dove
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Director: Duki Dror
Distribution by: Arab Films Distribution
The story of Palestinian-Israeli-American world champion boxer Johar Abu Lashin. Undefeated, he decides to defend his title - first in his hometown of Nazareth, then in Gaza, Palestine - and unwittingly orchestrates his own downfall, as the quagmire of Middle-East politcs deals him the fatal blow.
By NED MARTEL April 13, 2005
This bruising but illuminating documentary considers how nationalism flattened
one young, sure-footed boxer. In "Raging Dove," which opens
today at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, 155 East Third Street, at Avenue
A, East Village, the director Duki Dror follows Johar Abu Lashin through
his quest for a world title, despite his complicated citizenship. Born
in Nazareth to an Arab family, Mr. Abu Lashin wins his first major upset
in the United States, where promoters bill him as "The Israeli Kid."
But his Arab heritage, he asserts, often makes the media's hero-making
machinery grind to a halt. Meanwhile, he and his American wife live in
what he sees as a lusher Promised Land, a horse farm in Tennessee. Mr.
Abu Lashin tries to stage two big boxing matches, and politics undermine
his every step.
Mr. Dror's intimate, dedicated camerawork captures the boxer's wrath and
dejection, plus some maniacal, sweaty glimpses of a sport that is too
often depicted as a ballet with blood. "Sometimes I feel, I'm ashamed
to say, a hero without a home," the prizefighter says, with uncharacteristic
self-pity. His failures strangely ennoble him, making him stronger without
the rah-rahs of a fickle fan base.
Duki Dror on Raging Dove:
"It was in 1998 that I first came across the story of Johar Abu Lashin. A small news item in the back-pages of a local Israeli newspaper reported: a world champion boxer, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, defeated only by the flags he has waved upon victory (first Israeli, then Palestinian) is trying to make a comeback in the Middle East. My curiosity led me all the way to a small town in Eastern Tennessee to meet the man behind the story. Immediately, I was struck by Johar's inner contradictions-sensitive and vulnerable yet hard and volatile; a lot of repressed pain, and not-so-repressed anger. The first thing I look for when I make a documentary is the inner drama of the character. Johar was consumed by drama: in his personal life, in his public life, in his past, and it wasn't hard to guess back then-in his future. Raging Dove is first of all the story of an individual: a man's trajectory, his ups and downs-in short his struggle to overcome, triumph, succeed, or at least not fail. But it is also representative of the larger predicament in which the 1 million Palestinian Israeli citizens find themselves. The descendents of those who, having lost their homeland in 1948, remained within the confines of a newly established state which did not define itself as theirs and rendered them a minority in their own country. Of the many hardships Palestinians in Israel face perhaps the most salient is the imperative of negotiating contradictory identities. Johar Abu Lashin is a Palestinian by birth, an Israeli by circumstance, and an American by choice (though by and large Palestinians regard him as a collaborator, Israelis as an enemy, and Americans as a foreigner). As such, not only are none of these identities complete, they also fragment him. A man in constant battle with himself, the only place where he truly feels whole, or at home, is in the ring. "
Best Documentary 2002 DocAviv Documentary Film Festival
Best Documentary 2002 Valley Film Festival, Los Angeles
Certificate of Merit 2002 San Francisco International Film Festival
South by Southwest Film Festival
Double Take Film festival
Seoul Documentary Film Festival, Korea
Leipzig Dokfest, Germany
