Rachel Gutgarts

Installation

Two figures are sitting facing each other.

Between the two, a coffee table with a cement statue in the centre. On the table next to the statue, two cups of hot coffee.

“I hit him on the head,” he says, after a long silence. The woman shifts in her chair. He rubs his hands together, trying to hide a shy smile. “The first time you shoot and hit someone, it’s not very pleasant.”

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Dans les rêves, quand on ne dort pas la nuit (In dreams, When You Can't Sleep at Night)is a three-channel video installation that uses a variety of cinematographic tools, as well as archive material, to reconstruct and debate written extracts from the testimonies of Israeli army snipers in the early 2000s.

During my compulsory military service in the Israeli army’s spokesperson unit, I came across an article entitled “The snipers of the al-Aqsa intifada; slaughter, humanity and experience.” I had been instructed to read the article and mark the “problematic” parts. In the end, because of its disturbing content, the article was not passed on to the journalist.

Today, I am haunted by the contents of that article, and I reflect on how, at some point in my life, I helped to hush it up. Through re-creation and critical reflections inspired by Hannah Arendt’s term “banality of evil,” the work attempts to explore the limits of morality and collective responsibility as they emerge from the snipers’ testimonies.

Rachel Gutgarts

Born in 1992 in Jerusalem, experimental filmmaker Rachel Gutgarts is a graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. My graduation film, *A Love Letter to the One I Made Up* (6', 2017), has been screened at numerous festivals. In 2020, I moved to France to produce VIA DOLOROSA (10’, 2023) with MIYU Productions. After the premiere *of VIA DOLOROSA* at the Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, I began my studies at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains (Vera Molnár cohort, 2023–2025). There I produced *HOW DO YOU SING A SONG TO THE LORD IN A STRANGE LAND*, a multimedia installation presented as part of the Panorama 26 exhibition in Tourcoing.

Production

Credits