Rabin, the Last Day
Amos Gitaï • 2015 • Israel
The story of a prime minister's assassination and unattained peace.
On November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot dead in a public square. The culprit opposed the Oslo Accords, which Rabin had painstakingly negotiated and for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The subsequent trial elucidated deeper fissures in Israeli society.
Staging historical reenactments of the investigation alongside archival footage of the grim, gruesome event itself, Rabin, the Last Day offers a nuanced account of the unraveling of a modern democracy while gesturing to alternate histories—the peace that might have been. Amos Gitaï's documentary premiered at Venice, where it won the Human Rights Film Network Award.
