The Students for Palestinian Human Rights Club, which formed this year, seeks to raise awareness of the Palestinian perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In tandem with members of Students Engaged in Pro-Israel Advocacy, the club hosted its first movie night on April 9 in the Brookline Access Television screening room. They presented the Oscar-nominated documentary 5 Broken Cameras.

The film follows Emad Bernat, who recorded the non-violent resistance movement in his Palestinian village. As villagers struggle to regain the vital agricultural land taken by Israelis, Bernat consistently witnesses violence, death, arrests and the loss of his son’s innocence.

The film conveys a hopeful, relentless fight for freedom as the video cameras are destroyed over and over again by soldiers only to be replaced each time. By the film’s end, Bernat records, with his sixth camera, the original barrier being demolished by a court order as a new one, which takes less of his village’s land, is built in its place.

Following the film, the club held a discussion for people to share their thoughts, reactions and opinions.

There was little disagreement over the emotionally striking qualities of the film, but there was debate over the larger political issues surrounding the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Seniors Dan Solomon and Tomás Aramburu, co-founders of the club, both said that the film contains a specific and biased opinion. However, they said they feel that they succeeded in presenting a marginalized point of view.

Solomon spoke of a school announcement last year about the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

“It was kind of defending the actions,” Solomon said. “And that was definitely one thing that made me think there should be another point of view at this school.”

The club hopes to help what could possibly be a lack of awareness in the community.

“I think there can be a lack of information,” Aramburu said. “The point of the film is to show in a very accurate way what life is like for people living in military occupations. It doesn’t try to paint any sort of balanced picture. If somebody can raise awareness about that and talk about that, it’s good.”

Mairin Quillen can be contacted at [email protected].