In People and the Land, Tom Hayes and Riad Bahhur travel to Israel, intent on investigating the system supported by billions of U.S. tax dollars yearly. Through editing, they highlight contradictions between what they find and what they are told officially, and reveal a two-level censorship of information regarding Israel and the conflict with the displaced Palestinian population. Soldiers stop their crew from filming scenes; all footage that is filmed must then be submitted to the military censors. In interviews, Arabs in Israel and the occupied territories discuss being subjected to systematic abuses, from arbitrary street closings and restrictions on entering certain sections of cities to school closures-a policy of segregation and harrassment perceived as a way of pushing them to emigrate out of the country. People and the Land is controversial and agitational, timely, and powerful. (57 mins) Preceded by the beautiful Homage by Assassination (Elia Suleiman, 1992, 28 mins), in which the Palestinian filmmaker (see also February 27) waits in his New York apartment for news of his family during the Gulf War; an excerpt from Saddam Speaks (Jon Alpert, U.S./Iraq, 1993, c. 5 mins), shot after the war; and Countdown (Akram Zaatari, Lebanon, 1995, 6.5 mins), which mixes "footage of real-life war and reel entertainment."-Kathy Geritz