March 19, 2012

Dear Friends,

This time I'm recommending Seeds of Summer for your library/film series. As with all films I choose, this is a quality documentary which has been appraised and chosen by forty film festivals and TV stations all over the world.

Though some festivals that choose Seeds of Summer are lesbian and gay film festivals, in fact the film is about feminism. In it, young teen-age girls who volunteered to serve their country in combat units, equal to but separate from the boys, go through a "rookie" training course that can befit the US Marines. They run, charge the enemy, do guard duty, shoot machine guns and carry heavy packs.

Seeds of Summer is Hen Lasker's first full length film. It is a mature film, directed as by an old hand, yet with a fresh approach of a first-timer who has to tell her own personal story of serving in a woman combat unit in the Israel Army. Seven years after completing an IDF course for female combat soldiers Lasker returns to the place where, for the first time, she fell in love with a woman — her commanding officer.

For 66 days and nights, the film follows the girls in one of the IDF's most rigorous combat courses and looks at the relationships that develop between girls in an environment subject to strict military code. Yet they remain young ladies, lipstick on a camouflaged face, boy-friends they can't meet, a too short Sabbath leave to loose virginity, and discussions about which sergeant is pretty.

The film reveals the mechanisms that enable the transformation of 18-year-old girls from daddy's little girls into fierce disciplined soldiers. Through the intimate relationship that develops between the director and one of the characters, questions about identity, sexuality and the discovery of femininity surface.

For details see http://docsforeducation.com/Seeds_of_Summer.php

For those not familiar with the Role of Women in Israeli Army, Wikipedia has a good article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces

Please pass this on to faculty & asscoiates especially those involved in Gender & Women studies.

For full catalouge see http://docsforeducation.com

Best
Nahum Laufer
Docs For Education

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