Israeli director Yoav Shamir’s trek to India was not easy. His film Flipping Out took him to India’s Himalayas and Goa beaches, where he documented young Israeli military veterans escaping the memories of their army service by turning to drugs.
Guy Sahar Russo, a former Israeli elite combat soldier, has been living for the past six years in India.
“The Himalayas were difficult to get to – it’s almost impossible to get there by plane and if there’s a flight, it’s only a 10-seater which hardly flies there – it’s very remote,” the award-winning filmmaker said from his Tel Aviv home.
To interview his subjects, Shamir travelled 24 hours by bus from Delhi, five hours by jeep and another three hours on foot, a trip he made four times in the two years it took to film the documentary.
The film explores the phenomenon known as “flipping out,” which affects about 2,000 former Israeli soldiers yearly who end up needing psychological help when they experience psychotic breakdowns as a result of their drug abuse.
After their compulsory military service, many soldiers see travelling as a rite of passage. They often meet in India at guest houses and resorts where they experience LSD, ecstasy and other hallucinogenic drugs and attend huge all-night raves – parties where drug use is common.
Although the Israeli youths interviewed by Shamir seemed troubled by their military experiences, they laughed it off as the time of their lives. Still, many became drug dependent and vulnerable and ended up needing help.
“In India there are so many Jewish travellers, so Chabad has about 10 houses wherever there is a concentration of Israeli backpackers, providing a place to pray, keep kosher and for Shabbat,” Shamir said.
“Since Chabad is very integrated into travellers’ lives and Indian life, when someone gets into trouble with drugs, a lot of the time they [Chabad] will be the first to hear if somebody is in a bad mental condition and they will help out.”
But when the Israeli government became aware that Chabad was taking advantage of these young men and trying to have them become more religious, Shamir said the Israeli anti-drug authority established secular “warm houses” to help the young people.
In addition, parents concerned about their child’s drug dependency hired former Mossad agent Helik Magnus to “rescue” delusional or dysfunctional youths with dramatic drug interventions. Magnus has returned hundreds of Israelis to their families, including one youth featured in Shamir’s film.
After his own military service, Shamir recalls, “I went travelling for three years to South America and India, but I never saw people flipping out from drugs.”
Nevertheless, when producer Michael Sharfshtein came to him with the concept for the movie he was intrigued.
“Back in 2005, when my film Five Days was being screened at Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival, I pitched the idea of Flipping Out, and the National Film Board was very interested.” (The NFB’s Kent Martin co-produced Flipping Out.)
Shamir received international acclaim for his award-winning Five Days, which documented the dismantling of Israeli settlements in Gaza, and for Checkpoint, which explored Israeli-Palestinian conflicts at border crossings.
Now that he has completed Flipping Out, Shamir has turned his attention to his latest documentary, Defamation, which explores anti-Semitism.
Defamation premiered last month at the Berlin International Film Festival, and Shamir has plans for its Canadian premiere at the Hot Docs 2009 festival, which begins April 30.
Flipping Out is available on DVD in mid-March at the NFB online store www.nfb.ca. For information on Defamation, visit –www.defamation-thefilm.com