3 questions for Neer Musa Shelter, whose Oscar-qualifying short 'Perspectives' addresses Israeli-Palestinian tensions: 'What's happening now is heartbreaking'

There are myriad perspectives on the Israel-Hamas war that's unfolding in the Middle East. Social media in particular offers a spectrum of opinion about the circumstances surrounding the current conflict, and its roots in decades, if not centuries, of history. But as Egyptian-British filmmaker Neer Musa Shelter tells Yahoo Entertainment, those extremely online perspectives can come weighted with their own baggage — baggage that drags down the larger conversation.

“What’s happening on the ground in Israel now is heartbreaking,” says Shelter, who served in the Israeli military nearly two decades ago and has friends among the reservist troops that have been called up for service. "My heart goes out to all the citizens that are currently being forced to live in war. But to my mind, just as the traumatic events of the war that’s currently happening will stick around for generations to come, so will the opinions formed around it. It’s those opinions that will potentially prevent further wars from happening in the future. Seeing what’s happening in real life is a clear indication that hasn’t happened.”

Shelter's new short film — titled, appropriately enough, Perspectives — directly confronts the simmering tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. Filmed on location in Israel in 2019, the movie is currently enjoying an award-winning run on the festival circuit and recently qualified for Oscar consideration in the short film category. Shelter, who currently resides in Australia, will learn in the coming weeks whether Perspectives makes the shortlist of eligible short film nominees for the 96th Academy Awards, scheduled to be handed out on March 10. “It’s a huge opportunity,” he says of a potential Oscar nomination. “Fingers crossed, toes crossed — everything.”

Unfolding over a taught eight minutes, Perspectives follows a soldier (played by award-winning Israeli actress Joy Rieger) enjoying a PDA-heavy bus ride with her girlfriend (Carmel Bin) when a Palestinian passenger (Carlos Gharzuzi) boards and begins acting suspiciously. A charged confrontation culminates in a moment where the two appear to reach an understanding without blood being shed. But as the man leaves and the bus continues on, the soldier notices that he left his duffle bag behind — and viewers are left to wonder whether the other passengers really are out of danger.

Shelter covers the action from a variety of points of view, from smartphones to security footage to an omniscient camera. And while the three leads are established actors, the other passengers are non-professionals that represent a diverse cross-section of Israeli society. It’s all part of Shelter’s effort to blur fact and fiction, simulating the way the two often blur together when real world events become grist for the social media mill. “We need to start learning that what we see online isn’t immediately true,” the director explains. “There are more sides to it than meets the eye.”

“People are forming opinions in a very myopic kind of way,” Shelter adds. “They’re collecting information from very selective sources — anything that is compliant with what their preconceived notions are. And I think we should always retain a healthy degree of doubt, because without that doubt, we can’t learn new things and we can't change our minds. Sometimes we need to change our minds in order to evolve.”

And that's the message that Shelter ultimately hopes that viewers take away from the film, even if he’s aware that Perspectives is going to be watched in the context of the current moment. “My film isn’t really about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — it's about how you formed your opinion about the conflict,” says Shelter. “And that could apply to any kind of incendiary subject matter: The way you inform your opinion of it is what matters.”

1. Perspectives is based on a true story — what can you tell us about the real event?

Well, the true story happened to me when I was a soldier. I had to distance myself from the characters enough to retain a certain level of objectivity, and feel like it wasn't me onscreen — that it’s happening to somebody else. The original event isn’t all too dissimilar to what happens in the beginning of the film. The gentleman and I stood up [on the bus] and there was a moment where I recognized him and he recognized me, and we both knew what was happening.

I remember it was a hot day, and he was wearing a big puffy blue jacket, so it was natural for me to become suspicious. I was the only soldier on the bus, and the only person who was armed. Slowly, without me even noticing, my body started moving and my gun started rising. The bus driver had stopped the bus at this point, and I was two seconds away from firing. The man and I looked at each other, and I had to make a choice: Do I shoot or not?

I thought, “There's a better way to solve this than violence.” So I raised my hand from the gun to show him that I wasn’t a threat. He raised his hand and showed me he wasn’t a threat either. He relaxed and the bus driver opened the door and he got out. Just before he got off the bus, he looked back at me and we both went, “All right, we ended this peacefully.” But I never searched under his jacket like the soldier does in the film, and the ending is vastly different as well.

I wanted to leave it as an open ending, because the unfortunate reality is that no matter how well a situation like that ends, those two sides will always suspect each other, and there will always be suspicion in the air. We leave the audience with a question mark to fill in for themselves — what do you think is in the bag? And that idea is that whatever you think is in the bag hinges on your own preconceived notions. Your perspective has already been built before the film, and it’s triggered to fill the gap of what’s in the bag. Therefore, the film walks the fine line between both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian argument. It’s not pro or against either side — it’s perfectly neutral.

2. Do you see a generation gap in the way the war is being debated online?

I’m not an expert, but I do think that the younger generations, to some degree, have a kind of bizarre handicap in regards to social interactions because the default is to interact via mobile phones and social media. The prevailing wisdom today is for people to say, “Well, if I’ve read it on this device, it must be real.” But I think we’re all guilty of that, and it’s unrelated to the any generation gap — it’s got to do with how long we’ve had social media around.

I’ve been in conversations and arguments were people argue passionately about a certain subject, but didn’t quite understand what they were talking about. And I think that’s because that they’ve read so much, but they understand very little. They assume truth when it’s not necessarily there.

Personally, I'm trying to separate myself more and more from what I read online and tell myself, “It may be true, it may not be true — I’m not going to jump to any conclusions.” And if that means that you have to read a book to figure out whether something you read online is true or false, that’s worthwhile because you’re better informed on the other end of it.

3. How has your own thinking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shifted since your time in the military?

The situation in Israel has been the same pretty much for decades, unfortunately. What’s happening now is an extreme example, and one of the most horrific clashes we’ve seen in recent history, but it’s not an isolated incident. There have been clashes stretching back almost 75 years now. So I can’t say much has changed. We all just want it to end — whether or not that will happen in our lifetime, who’s to say?

But there's always hope. That’s the one thing I will say: There always is hope. It doesn't matter if anyone tells you, “Oh, it’s hopeless.” Hope is always there and it’s worth hanging on to. That’s definitely something I’ve learned. And that arc is clear in Perspectives. There’s a moment where both characters have that moment of understanding. The soldier understands that the man is not a threat, and within that moment she goes, “I racially profiled you, and I was wrong. Your smiling at me, so you forgive me.” Not a word of dialogue is spoken. I wanted it to come through in their performances.

When people watch the film, I direct their attention to that moment and ask, “What do you think happened there?” They tell me they think that she felt sorry, and she did feel sorry. So people are picking up on the subtext built into the narrative. We give the soldier a full character arc.