Shahar Golan has been painting since he was 12, but at the age of 46 he discovered that he was actually born with blindness. Until three years ago, he was unaware that he was blind and did not know the source of the difficulties and challenges he faced.
For 46 years, Shahar lived in a black pit of ignorance. He himself knew he was shortsighted, but the system, like the system, did not see him, did not recognize his condition.
"I always felt different, different, but I didn't know why," he says. "I didn't understand what made me like that. In recent years, I have been trying to reassemble the puzzle of my life, and according to my wife Shira, my paintings are exactly as I see reality: ruptures and tears connected to each other in a way that is, sometimes illogical. Many details from reality are not included in my vision and I complete them as best I can, sometimes from imagination."
Shahar, who is now in his 50th year, is married to Shira, an art therapist. They have an eldest daughter and twins, a son and a daughter. Now, as part of "Coming Out of the Blind Closet", he participated in the documentary film "At Dawn" directed by Estelle Dunn, which tells his story as part of a project of unique documentaries created entirely by people with blindness and visual impairments.
The project, an initiative of the Central Library for the Blind and Reading Impaired, was directed and led by veteran documentarian Barak Heiman, head of the Film Department at Beit Berl College's Midrasha. matched the blind directors with photographers and editors who are themselves esteemed docu-makers (Yaniv Linton, Omer Manor, Lukasz Konopa, Yonatan Zur, Adam Gelman and Elad Davidovich Shikowitz), and the exciting products will be visible this Tuesday (July 4) at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, as part of "Cina Forte" - the annual film festival of the Department of Film at Beit Berl College.
From the film "At Dawn" about Shahar Golan, directed by Estelle Dunn. Cinematography:Lukasz Konopa, Editing: Elad Davidovich Shikovitz
One of the heroes of the films, as already mentioned, is Dawn. "I was born and raised in Jerusalem, one of four brothers," he says. "My childhood was spent with many trips abroad, since my father, the late writer Shamai Golan, was a Foreign Ministry emissary at the embassies in Mexico and Argentina, and I went through countless frameworks. When I was in eighth grade, we returned from Mexico and moved to Tel Aviv, and when I joined the army, my parents were on a mission at the embassy in Moscow and I stayed in Israel."
Wait, were you in the army and studied in regular frameworks?
"I've always been in regular frameworks and did full military service, because I was considered a sighted person, but the problems I discovered three and a half years ago are something innate, not something that develops with life. I was born with blindness. They didn't understand it because they didn't do the proper tests, and it turned my life into hell.
"All these years I complained that I couldn't see. My parents took me to ophthalmologists, plural, but they all determined 'nearsighted'. Well, then I need glasses. But I know and feel that I can't see. For all these years, the main problem was that I didn't know what the problem was."
How did you manage?
"Technically, I taught myself. It's a sentence I can tell you about my whole life. I teach myself, I have no difficulty, but here may be my mistake, because I played it. I didn't know what the problem was, they told me 'you don't see well' and gave me glasses, but it didn't help and led to difficult social experiences. They said I was an astronaut, not trying hard enough to see. I, for my part, did everything to fit in, but at school, during ball games, I just didn't see anything. They shouted at me, 'The ball is coming to you!' To this day, I remember that scream and don't know where the ball is.
"When I was a kid in the '80s, any limitation would have made a person less valuable. I adopted that attitude and did my best to manage on my own, to play it as if I were seeing. But it didn't cross my mind for a moment that I was actually a person with a disability. In order not to be swallowed up in this world, you have to play it, or fall, and I decided with myself at a very young age - I don't fall."
"To continue to be born again." Shahar Golan and director Estelle Dunn in "At Dawn", cinematography: Lukasz Konopa
"Paints from emotion"
One of the ways Dawn found so as not to fall was to start painting. "I started painting as a teenager," he says, "and actually painting didn't just come. I come from an artistic home, my father is a writer, chairman of the Writers' Association, one of the founders of the Writer's House in Jerusalem, my mother is a researcher, a doctor of literature, and I, the son of literary people, could not read...
"So I can't write, I can't read either, and the color attracted me. It was something I could also touch – and a result comes out. The secret in painting is that I have intention and desire, but I work mainly from emotion.
"I paint with a lot of social criticism, because it's my place to shout my cry, of what I experience from institutions, from frameworks, from everywhere. It doesn't turn out exactly the way I want, but much better, because I let the emotion and hand work, instead of the eyes that can't."
"Moments". Painting by Shahar Golan, photo: from the private album
Despite his heavy vision limitations, Shahar studied complementary medicine, worked as a therapist and started a family, still not knowing exactly what problem he suffers from.
"The turning point in my life began when the children were born, the eldest daughter and then the twins," he says. "I went with them to playgrounds, and that's where I got a lot of fear, because the girl went up to the slide, for example, and just disappeared. I didn't see or know where she was, the road was nearby, and I found myself jumping up and calling out to her with terrible anxiety and my wife saying to me, 'What, she's on the slide' or 'She's here next to us.'
"At one point, my wife said, 'Listen, there's a problem here that needs to be understood.' She started inquiring and got a form with a checklist that they hadn't thought of sending me to for 46 years. After quite a few difficulties, three and a half years ago we reached a high-ranking doctor who was the first – with all the absurdity of what I am saying now – simply saw me. He asked me about my life, my experiences, and suddenly understood my true situation. The same doctor told me, 'Go do tests that you should have done 40 years ago,' and then they finally realized that I just couldn't see. That I am a person with blindness.
"It was a turning point in my life. Suddenly, everything connected to me, and the same doctor also helped me understand where all my difficulties were coming from. Since then, I've struggled to admit my situation and know how to get help. I also reached great places through the Tel Aviv municipality, through Marshal (a multi-service center for people with blindness or visual impairment) in Tel Aviv, which provide services to the blind and opened a world of accessibility for me for the first time, and through the wonderful Migdalor association, which teaches visually impaired and blind people to function, and actually allows them to manage independently.
"For the past three and a half years, I feel like I've finally been taught to walk, and being in this film, through meeting director Estelle Dunn, is another step in that walk, in coming out of the blind closet."
As part of this process, what do you dream of doing?
"A lot of things, and for me there's no such thing as can't. I dream of allowing myself to live with blindness, to walk proudly as a blind person. I also see myself in art, publishing all the criticism I have in painting - in an exhibition. I've never done an exhibition.
"Mostly, I want to be who I am, without games and without plays that I've gotten completely used to. I was used to falling, getting hurt, getting run over - and not making up here. Now I want to continue to be born again."
The director of the film about Dawn is Estelle Dunn of Holon, married plus a daughter and a former banker, who "in recent years has enjoyed creating, writing screenplays, painting and now also making a docu-film. "I've always been outraged by injustice, negligence and the culture of 'it's going to be fine,'" she says.
"It sounds cliché, but I truly believe that 'you and I will change the world.' Through the amazing and moving story of Shahar, who was stuck with negligent diagnoses by various doctors, I wanted to bring awareness to the audience of the importance of a second medical opinion and also to bring awareness to the process of recognizing blindness, a difficult process in which you have to recalculate a route."
The wisdom of pretzels
Another artist participating in the project is Amalia Hay (61), who lives simultaneously in Tel Aviv, Shoham and Reno, USA. "I divide my time between these three places, because my partner works in Reno and I join him, in Shoham is our family home and in Tel Aviv I have a small apartment where I am during the week. I've been married for 40 years and we have three grown children, so when they left the house we went out too."
Amalia lost her sight at the age of 30, due to an illness sitting on the retina. "Today I am defined as blind, but unlike blind people from birth, my brain knows how to complete pictures or reality in a different way, because it remembers what it saw," she says. "If, for example, I walk down an avenue, I do 'see an avenue.' Something in space is still alive, working, and present in my brain. It still produces visual images.
"So, by the way, it was relatively easy for me to make the film, because I knew exactly what I wanted them to see, how and where. I knew from which angles I wanted to be photographed, but unfortunately I couldn't really see it, for example I knew I wanted to be seen with my guide dog, Dumbo, walking down the street. It was important to me that they see that I am independent."
From the movie "Before it ends" by Amalia Hay. Cinematography: Omer Manor, Editing: Yonatan Tzur
According to Amalia, her film "Before It Ends" "really doesn't talk about blindness, but about my life and what happens in it and about some desire to experiment. I think that because of the loss of my vision, I also lost some fear. Suddenly I could do a lot of things.
"When I was younger, I had, you know, a job, kids, a mortgage and all that, and there's always a sense of fear of what's going to happen in the future. I'm a family therapist by profession, I worked in teaching, I was an educational consultant and I worked in special education, and suddenly something happened in my life and I said, 'Kibinimat, I'm not waiting another second, I'm starting to do what I want.' Suddenly I didn't have to live up to the standards of the world, because he moved me off the normal track, so I only do what I want. Something about this woke me up, like an alarm clock to live – and live better."
You lost your sight as a young mother, how did that affect you, the children?
"My children and I have been very close since childhood until today. It's a complicated question, but I think my children have grown up to be better people, much more sensitive to others, looking, helping. You see the other."
"Talking about what is, not nothing." Amalia Hay in "Before It Ends", Photo: Omer Manor
Like Shahar, Amalia is also engaged in art. In the film, she describes how she turned all her physical memories into papier-mâché sculptures. "My sculptures were created because of home renovations," she laughs. "All my life I've been a hoarder, collecting diaries, letters and so on, and suddenly I can't read them but I don't want to lose them, so the only way to leave them with me was to just tear them into pieces and make papier-mâché sculptures out of them. By the way, you can also read the letters on the statues, but in sections, just like my vision.
"This film is a good and rare opportunity to both engage in art and talk about who I am, what I am. I always give the example of the pretzels, after all, what defines the pretzels? The hole in it, the nothingness. But that doesn't make the bagels any less tasty or loved. For me, too, the lack of vision may define me, but I speak of what is.
Papier-mâché sculpture created by Amalia Hay, photo: from the private album
"I do a lot of things, such as guiding groups of mothers who deal with both blindness and raising children, helping people coping with vision loss in the family, and constantly trying to present the issue of blindness in the public sphere. Blind people are not concerned with blindness but with their own lives, and if we work to show this, perhaps dealing with blindness in the public sphere will become something less frightening, something easier for people to get close to.
"I travel a lot, I've just come back from the US and Mexico and I'm supposed to go to Guatemala and Cyprus, and then Africa. I'm constantly traveling and doing, because anything is possible. We can talk about the hole, but the pretzel is better than his hole."
Amalia Hay: "My film really doesn't talk about blindness, but about my life and some desire to experiment. I think that because of the loss of my vision, I also lost some fear. I said, 'Kibinimat, I'm not waiting another second, I'm starting to do whatever I want.'"
"Can do everything"
A very special film in the project was created by Amin Saleh (27) from the village of Mashhad near Nazareth. "I was born with 70 percent blindness and became 100 percent blind due to a genetic disease I inherited from my grandfather, who was also blind," Saleh says.
"By the way, my nickname here is 'Abu al-Nur.' Nur is light, that is, the father of light. I have a strong memory from first grade, when the teacher wanted to test my eyesight. She gave me a drawing of a bear and told me, 'Copy it on the blackboard,' and I succeeded. The teacher was very surprised, but nevertheless as a child I was diagnosed as blind and learned to read and write in Braille."
Amin's film, "Special Invitation," is a delicate work about him and his life. "I wanted the film not to talk about blindness directly, but gently, so I chose the name 'Special Invitation,'" he explains. "I wanted to invite people to get to know me as a blind person who could do anything. For me, blindness isn't a disability, it's a lifestyle."
From the film "Special Invitation" by Amin Saleh. Cinematography:Yaniv Linton, Editing: Yonatan Tzur
How did you come to participate in the project?
"I love learning and I also said in the film that I decided to learn something new every day. In this framework, for example, I learned the Quran by heart, and also to play Darbuka.
"After high school, I studied English literature and communication at the University of Haifa, dreamed of becoming a translator because I love languages very much, and I started studying translation at Oranim College. After one semester I decided not to continue, due to accessibility issues, and on the same day I received an email from the Central Library for the Blind in Tel Aviv about the film project. I applied, and I remember how excited I was when I was elected.
"An important step for independence." Amin Saleh at "Special Invitation", Photo: Yaniv Linton
"When working on the film, I wrote the script and sent the professional team a detailed page of what to see and hear. An exciting experience happened to me after filming, when the photographer and his wife, who she edits, came to visit us at our house and she asked me, 'How did you work?' I told her that I had sent the editor a detailed document with instructions on what to do, and she said, 'Wow, so you're a real director. As an editor, I sometimes get the raw material and they just tell me to manage.'"
Where do you see yourself in the next few years?
"Today I conduct workshops for groups, still voluntarily, on all kinds of topics. I focus on mediation between members of groups, for example strengthening the ties between those who are going to work in the group and group dynamics, and I am interested in learning group facilitation and engaging in this professionally. I even have a dream to establish such a center, which will provide space for groups and workshops.
"But mostly I dream of being more independent, before I think, for example, about starting a family. I want to study, make a living, live alone. When filming for your article, I had to go to the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and there was no one to accompany me, because usually when I have to go to a new place, my mother accompanies me, and if she can't, then someone else I know. This time no one could, but we didn't give up, or rather Barak didn't give up on me, and it was the first time in my life that I took public transportation alone to a place I didn't know. It was an important step for independence for me."
Amin Saleh: "After filming, the photographer and his wife, who is an editor, came to visit and she asked me, 'How did you work?' I told her that I sent the editor a detailed document with instructions, and she said, 'Wow, you're a real director. Sometimes I get raw material and they tell me, 'Get along.'"
"They did a school for us"
The project's host, Barak, is very excited about the films - and especially their creators. "No matter how much I preach to my students in the film department at Beit Berl how important it is to distance myself from stereotypes and prejudices, I myself am deeply touched by them," he says.
"When my brother Tomer and I were approached by the Central Library for the Blind to lead a docu-directing workshop, following the many workshops we have done in Israel and abroad over the years, my first instinct was something I am very unproud of: I simply did not believe that blind people could direct, I thought it was an attempt predestined for failure.
"To my great joy, the participants in the workshop gave my brother and I an unforgettable school in overcoming difficulties and hurdles, and proved to us what we actually already knew in advance, and which is also what I try in every possible way to instill in my students at the Midrasha: the most important and significant work tool for any creator, no matter if he is a documentarian or fictionist, blind or sighted, Experienced or virgin, is passion. The feeling that if you don't make your movie, you'll just go crazy.
Promo for Beit Berl College's "China Forte" festival
"At the Cina Forte Festival, which will take place this Tuesday at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, you will be able to be impressed by the wonderful work of our students and graduates.
"Whoever comes to the festival, which is free of charge, will cry with laughter and pain and will learn many new things about the crazy, cruel and beautiful world in which we live, which is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for our students."
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