As the Gaza conflict broke out last year, veteran Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi chose to leave the camera in the hands of fellow filmmakers who were still inside the beleaguered region.
More than seven months after the war broke out, Masharawi presented his project “They are the story” at the Cannes Film Festival in France. “They were fighting to protect their lives, their families, to search for food, for wood to make a fire,” Masharawi said.
The outcome is a series of short videos titled Ground Zero that tell the story of the Israeli assault of Gaza and the subsequent humanitarian crisis from the viewpoint of local residents. In one, a conflict-displaced mother places her daughter in a big white bucket and bathes her tenderly with water from a spotless Turkish coffee pot. In another, a man describes how the building he was in fell and he spent the next 24 hours under the rubble.
Masharawi oversaw the 20 foreign teams that were stationed in Gaza, describing the procedure as extremely challenging. Masharawi, a Gaza native, stated, “There were instances when we had to wait a week or ten days just to talk to someone or to have internet access to submit anything.
Teams were busy at other times, looking for a tent, getting an ambulance to go and save some kids, or locating insulin for a director’s mother. The movies are a part of a number of Palestinian stories that are being screened during the festival, such as Mehdi Fleifel’s drama To A Land Unknown, which is set in Athens and centers on refugees.
‘Gatekeepers’
More than 35,000 people have died in Gaza as a result of Israel’s military onslaught, the majority of them were women and children, according to officials from the local health ministry. Israel’s Cannes film festival pavilion is showcasing its films thousands of miles distant from the fighting.
Although Algeria has created room for its filmmakers at the opposite end of the world market in Cannes, Palestinian cinema does not have a tent of its own at the event. Mohamed Jabaly, a Palestinian director living in Norway, stated, “Our narrative and storytelling is more important than ever.”
Right before the war broke out, he wrapped up filming Life is Beautiful, his most recent feature. The concluding scene of the movie was filmed with a close buddy who has not returned from the war. Jabaly claimed, “He was killed while waiting for food aid.”
The US-based Watermelon Pictures’ Munir Atallah says that Palestinians have “for too long been shut out by the gatekeepers of the industry” and he hopes to introduce the funny family portrait to North American audiences.
Cherien Dabis, a Palestinian who co-directed the popular Hulu series Ramy and starred in the 2009 film Amreeka, has already gained popularity in the United States. But the Gaza war interrupted the filming of her most recent movie, a historical epic.
In response, a member of the ground team in the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah, Ala Abu Ghoush, has produced a documentary titled Unmaking Of, which is about the project that has come to a standstill. “The film is really asking the question: What is the importance of doing films and art in this kind of situation, in this war?” stated Abu Ghoush.
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