On the days between Sept. 16 and 18 in 1982, during the Lebanese Civil War, Lebanese Christian Phalangist militiamen entered two Palestinian refugee camps and slaughtered innocent civilians inside. The lives of mothers, brothers, fathers, daughters, friends and lovers were destroyed in an act of atrocious genocide. Although exact numbers are not known the estimates run anywhere from 800 to 3500 killed. The incident became known as the Sabra and Chatila Massacre, forever ingrained in the minds of all involved, including filmmaker Ari Folman, who was a soldier in the Israeli Army and in Lebanon during the war.

A stunning and highly emotional film by Folman, “Waltz With Bashir,” which won the Los Angeles Film Critic’s award for “Best Animation,” combines the insightful nature of a documentary with the world of animation to form the unique retelling of a story that must not be forgotten.

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I recently sat down with Israeli director, Ari Folman, to discuss his Oscar-nominated, autobiographical, animated film: Waltz With Bashir, featuring the 1982 massacre in Lebanon during the height of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Accepted to both the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals in the same hour, Waltz With Bashir has certainly been acclaimed internationally. With 25 interviews to follow ours that afternoon, proud of his piece, and confident in it’s success, Mr. Folman gave me some insight on the project, and upcoming the awards season…

Usually people associate animation with a very specific type of storytelling – family or children’s films. Your story involves an incredibly heavy topic. In choosing to tell your story via animation, did you feel you were taking a risk? Were you committed to animation from the start?

It was always meant to be an animated film – I wouldn’t do it any other way. I really do not understand the difference in terms of truth or belief in drawn picture and pixelized picture. Would it be different if the characters were by DV camera? As long as the voice-over was the same, who decides that pixel-image is more true or real than drawings?

I find it hard to understand why there isn’t any more adult animation. Animation is now a complete, and total air for family movies, kids movies, box office hits. I never understood why – my next film is an adult film, animated as well, but it’s fiction. There should be more things like that.

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