WELCOME TO HEBRON (SORT OF)

About 35 miles to the south of Jerusalem you'll find Hebron. In that means "friend," which is interesting because we all have heard at least a little news and know that the Israeli-Palestine dealie is anything but amiable. For more than a century the city has been exhausted by hatred; lately the Israeli army's taken to

kidnapping Hebron students and civilians

. Swedish journalist Terje Carlsson spent about three years filming

Welcome to Hebron

, a documentary that draws attention to the impact and grueling aftermath of Israeli occupation in southern Palestine.

The story centers on 17-year-old Leila Sarsour, who was raised by women and attends an all-girl school infamously known for being enclosed by Israeli settlements and military occupation. What we see of Leila is neither dainty nor weak; she dodges stones and takes no shit, and still gossips about Brad Pitt and goes shopping like a regular annoying teenage girl. In many ways,

Welcome to Hebron

speaks of a truth often dismissed by media hype. We talked with Terje about this.

Vice: Your intention with this film was to save the world, or something--care to elaborate?

Terje Carlsson:

The point is that we need to give a shit, basically…it's a fucking privilege in our part of the world to have access to anything and anywhere. Since we can give a shit, we should. There are two things I wanted to show: First, being a "predictable" Muslim, since they are largely shown either victimized or demonized. Secondly, I really dislike religious fundamentalism, so one good way to show (my distaste) is to convey Jewish fundamentalism.; something different from what people are used to seeing.

Why Jewish fundamentalism? For some reason people, when people think of extremity in religion, they always make the connection with Muslim fundamentalism. In Sweden, we have Christian fundamentalists… I wanted to show that all religious fundamentalism is fucked up.

In your film we see kids throwing stones, adults talking shit, GI Joes skipping around with guns the size of farm animals, and graffiti reading "Gas the Arabs": Is Hebron really this warm and friendly, or are you just trying to make for a good story? I have about 50 sequences where kids are being attacked, but I personally didn't want to put too much of that in the film since you always see violence with these type of documentaries. [In Hebron] you will have two weeks of no violence, four days of a complete nightmare--you never know… anything can happen at any time.

Watching this film, I can see that Leila doesn't take much shit. It's nice to see a girl that age holding her own so well, with enough balls to stand up for what she believes in. But why Leila? Why not Leila's brother? You never get to see females from the Middle East in this manner; she's such a cool person; she speaks fluent English as well. Her language skills were great.

How did you meet her?

Initially I went to there to do a feature for Swedish radio. The school that Leila attends is well-known because of its location so I met her there.

I can't imagine that the locals were jumping for excitement to feature in your documentary. Being European and a journalist must have raised a few suspicious eyebrows…

No difficulty; [Leila's family] really took me in and we had a great time. There were these checkpoints though; I wanted to communicate with soldiers to find out what they were up to, but I didn't want to become friends with them because of the chance that the Palestinians would be suspicious and therefore deny me the opportunity to interview. Also, I remember that the teachers at the school were frequently asked why there was a man in all-girls' school. But for the most part, it wasn't even about the gender thing or anything particular; the fact that I was a man never caused a problem. So I thought fuck it, I'm going to film it and then show people in this situation.

Being in very center of social and political chaos must have scared the shit out of you.

Not really. I was more afraid of becoming really cynical. No one actually got killed; there wasn't any deadly violence. For me it was more about the fact that I was filming eight-year-olds getting beaten up…. This footage created dissonance; on one hand, I thought about how great this was going for my film, but on the other it was fucked up to witness it…. I remember that the soldiers erased my tape five times in total, whenever I filmed anything bad…. But I wasn't surprised [by that]. There was no blood in my film. It was made for a Western audience. I was trying to picture the psychological suffering more than anything.

Did you get your ass kicked by an Israeli soldier? Five-year-old aim a stone at your head? Food tasty in Hebron county jail?

Fortunately I didn't get into any serous trouble. Some settlers tried to beat me, of course…some even called me a Nazi; but I was lucky to not get into any serious harm.

I couldn't help but notice that the final scene of the documentary had so many positive and hopeful qualities: Colorful balloons, laughter, smiles, not to mention Leila talking about how she wanted to "help all the people understand each other." Do you really think that it can be all rainbows and butterflies? Is there really hope?

I believe there is hope. I think the situation will get worse before it gets better--there is no solution that will make 100 percent of people happy. Honest compromising will succeed in some way or another. Co-existence is the only way people are able to get along.

You spent about three years in the center of one of the most heated conflicts in world, witnessed some fucked up behavior, and tolerated violent military conduct. I assume you're not teaming up with Vogue for the 2010 trend watch for your next project? Right now I'm working with Israeli peace activists; I'm filming for a year, then editing February, March and April. I believe that these are the truly brave Israelis--they are some of the few that are really courageous and fucking great.