Emad Burnat

Emad Burnat is a Palestinian farmer and filmmaker, known for the documentary 5 Broken Cameras. He is the first Palestinian nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

5 Broken Cameras

His documentary 5 Broken Cameras is a first-hand account of life and demonstrations in Bil'in, a West Bank village adjacent to Israeli settlements. The film was co-directed by Burnat and Guy Davidi, an Israeli filmmaker. The film is structured in chapters around the destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras and the film follows one family's evolution over five years of village upheaval.

Five Broken Cameras is a Palestinian-Israeli-French co-production. Both the personal style of the movie and, especially, Burnat's working with an Israeli filmmaker, has been controversial amongst the Palestinian community due to the ongoing boycott against Israel by Palestinians. The boycott, however, was never intended to include a boycott of Israeli activists and the problem stems from Israel having claimed the film as their own following its Oscar nomination in 2012.