I watched this film for an Israeli Cinema/TV class at university. According to my professor, this film is not available for purchase due to the legal actions taken (or at least threatened) by Dudu Topaz himself after he saw it. This was originally intended to air on TV, but Dudu used his considerable influence to block it from airing. So, the filmmaker has given a copy to each of the three main indie video stores in Israel for rental, plus personal copies here and there. Somehow my prof. got a hold of one, not sure how.
Anyway, the film itself is obviously biased from the very start. The filmmaker followed Dudu for several years, and all of those hundreds of hours of footage are condensed into roughly 80 minutes. It gives a mixed view of Dudu, including quotes from him about his racist beliefs, as well as the good side of what he does (i.e. helping unfortunate people through his show). Even this benevolent aspect of what Dudu does, however, is shown with a negative slant, as the filmmaker claims that Dudu is exploiting the people.
I didn't even know who Topaz was before this, and I don't really care either way about him. As a student filmmaker with a lot of documentary experience, however, it was extremely easy to see this filmmaker's strong bias against Topaz, and this bothers me. At least give the guy a chance.
Anyway, the film itself is obviously biased from the very start. The filmmaker followed Dudu for several years, and all of those hundreds of hours of footage are condensed into roughly 80 minutes. It gives a mixed view of Dudu, including quotes from him about his racist beliefs, as well as the good side of what he does (i.e. helping unfortunate people through his show). Even this benevolent aspect of what Dudu does, however, is shown with a negative slant, as the filmmaker claims that Dudu is exploiting the people.
I didn't even know who Topaz was before this, and I don't really care either way about him. As a student filmmaker with a lot of documentary experience, however, it was extremely easy to see this filmmaker's strong bias against Topaz, and this bothers me. At least give the guy a chance.