Director/Producer: Robert Levering and Stephen Talbot

Description:

Who are Palestine’s Christians, what are their lives like under Israeli occupation and what are their hopes for the future? The film gives voice to this often overlooked community which has existed in the Holy Land since the earliest days of Christianity. Today, in the West Bank, isolated and besieged by Israeli settlers and Netanyahu’s government, Palestine’s 50,000 remaining Christians face an existential threat. After the horror and destruction in Gaza, they ask, “Are we next? Will we be erased from our homeland?” The film includes interviews with a range of Palestinian Christians, as well as a Muslim bookshop manager and an Israeli rabbi and human rights activist. Long allied with their Muslim brethren in demanding equal rights and justice, Palestinian Christians in the film explain the need for “creative resistance” to Israeli occupation, emphasize their commitment to non-violence, and appeal for international support.

Biography:

Stephen Talbot is an Emmy, DuPont and Peabody award-winning filmmaker and journalist who has made over forty documentaries in the US and abroad. His last film, The Movement and the “Madman” about the Vietnam war and the power of protest, premiered in 2023 on the PBS series American Experience and at the UNAFF. It has been broadcast in numerous countries, including Vietnam, and is streaming on PBS Passport, Amazon and Kanopy. Talbot spent many years working for the PBS series Frontline, where his documentaries included The Best Campaign Money Can Buy, Justice for Sale, and News War: What’s Happening to the News. He directed the PBS history special, 1968: The Year that Shaped a Generation, as well as producing and writing PBS biographies of authors Dashiell Hammett, Ken Kesey, Carlos Fuentes, Maxine Hong Kingston and John Dos Passos. He was the series editor of Frontline World for eight years and reported from Lebanon and Syria. 

Robert Levering is a journalist who has written dozens of articles and authored eight books about the corporate workplace. He coauthored Fortune magazine’s annual “100 Best Companies to World For” article and founded Great Place to Work Institute, a global research and consulting firm. A lifelong Quaker, Levering as a young activist was a staff organizer for a number of national antiwar demonstrations during the Vietnam War. He was the executive producer of The Movement and the “Madman” (2023), which won a Best Editing Award at the UNAFF for Stephanie Mechura.  In 2024 Levering toured the West Bank as part of a faith-based fact-finding delegation. He returned in 2025 with a journalist delegation and went on to film Last Christian in Bethlehem with director Talbot and a Palestinian video crew. 

Contact Information:

e: lastchristianinbethlehem@gmail.com