Avant il n'y avait rien

In Avant il n'y avait rien, Yvann Yagchi finds a possible, poetically fitting way to address the longstanding conflict between Israel and Palestine. Made before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the film concentrates on a close friendship forged in childhood. The Palestinian filmmaker and his Israeli counterpart grew up together in Switzerland and each eventually explored their respective national and cultural pasts and identities. The best friend embraced Zionism and moved to the West Bank to live in a Palestinian Occupied Territory. Yagchi, troubled but curious, decided to make a documentary with his friend there – an opportunity to discuss, compare and argue, but in a hopefully peaceable way.

But the friend soon called a halt to the project, withdrawing his collaboration. He exists in the film now only as a trace, with his face erased. Yagchi refashioned his film as an impassioned, sometimes furious letter to this absent interlocutor. In cinematic terms, the letter takes the form of a peripatetic essay, including an investigation of his own family legacy – in particular, the existence of a magnificent collection of books now falsely catalogued as "Abandoned Property" in the National Library of Israel.

Blending live footage, animation and voice-over, the film offers a moving testament to friendship.

–  Adrian Martin