Once upon a time in Jerusalem…

Synopsis

Preceded by the misfortune, a small group composed by nineteen men, women and children arrive in Jerusalem in 1881 from Chicago. Their aim: to found a Christian colony in the Holy City while waiting for the arrival of the Messiah, because, according to all the prophecies of the epoch, he would come back coinciding with the change of the century.

But the years pass, the century changes, the wars happen, but the Messiah would never come. The colony grows, and it manages to rely on more than one hundred souls, after a group of laborious countrymen from Sweden join in. They create a photographic department. Unique by that time. They recorded each and every of the events registered in the zone.
Meanwhile, the primitive colony will transform into an hotel, a meeting place, an untouchable and neutral island in the middle of constant conflicts. It is visited by illustrious men, common persons, politicians, journalists, writers, artists…

What is it about this regal Turkish palace that has led it to become a place for secret meetings, hidden agreements, a nest of spies, a home for artists?.

Once upon in Jerusalem… is simultaneously the portrait of an unique universe, the drawing of the history of the city, and of a whole century, seen from a different perspective: the American Colony Hotel.

The American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem… tales from the other side of the mirror.

Project selected at

• Tel Aviv Forum, Tel Aviv, 2008.
• Medimed, Sitges, 2009