The Human Factor
DIRECTOR: Dror Moreh

There was an eerie moment during a webinar Q&A with Dror Moreh, Israeli director of the riveting documentary The Human Factor, when Moreh, in Jaffa, was asked if he might need to run to an air raid shelter. As bitter fighting resumed between Hamas and Israeli forces, Moreh’s film reveals just how vulnerable lives and nations have been to the vagaries of intensely personal relationships between individual men.

The Human Factor features candid interviews with six of the principal American mediators, led by President Clinton’s special Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, skilfully intercut with contemporary images and news footage. As national leaders took centre stage, these men remained at the edge of the picture. Now their precise and detailed recollections take us right inside the rooms where the fate of the Middle East could hang on the nature of a handshake or what suit a leader chose to wear.