Burdrus is a Palestinian village, thirty-one kilometres north-west of Ramallah. There are just under one-and-a-half thousand people living here. Budrus came to the attention of the world at large in 2003 when the Israeli government decided to erect a barrier in the form of a fence or wall which, among other things, was to run straight through Budrus. As a result, the village was to become the site of some remarkable protests.
For her film, Julia Bacha, who has followed events in Budrus for the past five years, has chosen to focus on Palestinian activist Ayed Morrar and his fifteen-year-old daughter, Iltezam. By portraying the events largely through their eyes, the viewer is able to understand the reasons for the commitment displayed by the people of Budrus. The barrier, which was to be built on their land, their fields and their plantations, posed a serious threat to the villagers’ means of existence.
Ayed Morrar’s organisation of the protests is an extraordinary feat. Not only does he manage to bring together competing Palestinian organisations Hamas and Fatah, but hundreds of Israeli citizens also take part in the peaceful protest actions, as do members of the international peace movement. Nobody, however, can prevent these peaceful, non-violent demonstrations from being the target of aggressive reactions on the part of Israeli soldiers.
In his film company dokumentar.no Lie has since 2008 been working as a film director, cinematographer and producer for documentaries. He works with the new Canon EOS 5D/7D with HD film, and edits in Apple's Final cut.
With Haiti mon Amour (Kjære Haiti, hva nå?) Lie went to Port-au-Prince after the earthqake with Ole Paus and others. We followed the money collected by the norwegian consert Dugnad for Haiti and NRK, and then given to Red Cross, Church Aid and UNICEF. It is edited as a low budget film essay, an montage of images. (se video below)
He has since 2007 worked on a documentary portrait – The Seduced Human – Jørgten Leth and Haiti on the danish renowned filmmaker Jørgen Leth (2011). This one-hour documentary is financed so far by the Norwegian Film Institute with 720 000 kroner – and will be released in 2011. (se video below)
Lie is also editor-in-chief for DOX, the leading European quarterly magazine for documentary films, published by the European Documentary Network. See PDFs of the last magaines below.
Lie has been the editor-in-chief and publisher for Morgenbladet between 1993-2003, and has been editor-in-chief/publisher of the Nordic edition of the monthly newspaper Le Monde diplomatique between 2003-08, where he now is still the publisher and regulary film critic.
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