Director’s Statement

October 2, 2000, 9:00am: My phone rang as I was making my morning coffee. It was Adam, the director of the peace program I worked for. 

“Asel was killed this morning.”

I sank onto my couch in a state of shock. I didn’t know what to do. What do you do when you find out that a young person you love was killed?  All my brain could wrap itself around was the cup of just-poured coffee on the table in front of me. I remember thinking: Do I still drink the coffee?

In time, the shock settled into grief. But the question of “what do I do?” stayed with me as I watched Asel’s family and friends deal with their traumatic loss. It grew as I began to understand that the ongoing events of the Second Intifada (and indeed, over five decades of violence and displacement beforehand)  were a collective trauma for all Palestinians.  It strengthened as it became apparent that there would be no indictments for those who pulled the triggers, or those who gave the orders.

When traditional systems of justice trample the rights of marginalized communities, art can offer alternative forms of truth-telling. This was what I could do: I would write a play about Asel’s story, his family and the community’s struggle.

I began what turned out to be a 15-year process of interviewing Asel’s family members, particularly his sister Nardin (who became one of my dearest friends), compiling the emails he had left behind, and shaping it all into a script. The deeper I went into writing There Is A Field, the more I came to understand that this play--and the film that grew out of it--is not just Asel’s story. In Asel’s family, I hear echoes of the families of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Troy Davis, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Charleena Lyles— and of all those who have lost a loved one to state violence.

My hope is that everyone who watches There Is A Field will gain a deeper understanding of the human impact of violence driven by supremacy. Even more: I hope we will all come away with a profound commitment to taking part in universal struggles for equality, freedom and human rights--and with a recognition that our movements grow stronger when they are connected to one another.

In solidarity,

Jen Marlowe

Playwright, There Is A Field play // Director, There Is A Field film