Down River Jordan

27/09/2023

Such an honor to be showing Down River Jordan at the Richmond International Film Festival today!
If anyone is in the area and wants to check it out on the big screen it’s showing 9:15 PM at the Movieland Bowtie Theater tonight. Addie, our producer, Asaf, our translator/film crew and their new family member will be in attendance!

20/04/2023

We’re showing at Bridge of Peace online! Follow the link https://www.bridge-of-peace.com/final-19-april-2023 and use the code SAVEPEACE2023 to see all the incredible films and give ours a vote!

Natalia and Daniel are blind, but that condition was never an impediment for them, they live their lives to the full and love each other. Suddenly, something interrupts everything, imposing itself and hindering what blindness could not.

20/04/2023

We’re showing at Bridge of Peace online today! Follow the link https://www.bridge-of-peace.com/final-19-april-2023 and use the code SAVEPEACE2023 to see all the incredible films and give ours a vote!

22/03/2023

Happy to have The River Jordan share with Longleaf!

22/03/2023

Film festival submissions have started and we are so thrilled with the feedback we have received! We’re so grateful to LA Doc to be one of the first to select our film to screen and are honored for the best cinematography award!
If you are interested in listening to what some of the audience members had to say about Down River Jordan you can follow the link below.

https://youtu.be/T1rLx-SnZok

31/03/2021

Mohammed Ahmed Tariq El-Dalgei has been a citrus farmer in Jordan since 1957.  As Vice-President of the Water Association of Northern Affairs, part of his job includes distributing the water allotted by the Jordan Valley Authority to farmers daily. “We used to give each farmer 50%, but this year we did not give him even 30%.” With the water diversion created by the Israeli Alamoot dam and pollution on the rise, Mohammad partitioned a refining station for the treatment of water. “But this is not enough, and causes lack of crops and diseases because of the lack of water. European Union, Palestine, Israel, and Jorden must all work for a solution.”

10/03/2021

Knowing full well that the river dried up far before reaching the Dead Sea and that water levels at the sea have been dropping at rate of four feet a year, the Jordan River we had been following for eight days eventually came to a drizzle halt met with a gaping pipe spewing untreated sewage that continued in a sluggish crawl into military zones, so we rolled up our pack rafts for the last time. What we didn’t know then was our journey had just begun, because where the Jordan River is not, is a story of equal importance.

04/03/2021

Choosing the right equipment was crucial to the success of our journey. We needed boats light enough to carry when the river turned into a creek, but sturdy enough to tackle class III/IV rapids. We are forever grateful to Kokopelli for supporting our mission and helping us navigate the Jordan.

25/02/2021

I stepped off the airplane into a foreign world. A small airport filled with other languages and bustling with people who advanced with conviction, I threw myself into the pedestrian current trying to blend in with the assertion around me. Looking for a place to exchange currency, I pulled off into a vending machine eddy where, moments later, a couple with a camera and a notepad approached me. Still in a daze, they told me they worked for a local newspaper and were interviewing visitors (whether it was the confused expression or overflowing 70 liter backpack that gave me away I’ll never know) I welcomed the interview as a moments reprieve. After the article published my purpose for visiting, our film crew received a multitude of messages from locals both interested in our project and how they could help. We couldn’t have asked for a better way to kick off our project, which, 4 years later, is still receiving the same incredible support. We cannot thank you enough!

18/02/2021

Day 1 of our journey from source to sea!

17/02/2021

Slice of life // Waiting.

11/02/2021

Ahmed Ameen Atiat was a part of a long line of farmers who had relied on the Jordans water. His family was relocated away from the river into the West Bank after the 1967 War, but continued their farming practices with water from the Water Spring of Al-Auja. About 25 years ago, when the Spring began to dry up and the government forbade the drilling of any new wells or repair of preexisting ones, things changed for the farmers in the area “My family as farmers used to plant 70 Dunams of bananas, vegetables and watermelons. Now, farming is limited to this greenhouse, which equals 1 to 1.5 Dunams.” Unable to sustain the family any longer, Ahmed along with his brothers, were forced to drop out of school and look to the largely Jewish settlements for work. “The Jordan River, to me, is the happy past for my family and me. And it is the miserable present; the current life.”