Since the Hamas-Israel war began on 7 October, hours and hours of footage have been broadcast all over the world showing Palestinians in agony and pain, surviving constant bombing, hunger, and isolation.
Curated by El Gouna Film Festival, the Window on Palestine film programme tells us there is more to Palestine than these devastating images documenting the obliteration of the city of Gaza. Ten films are being screened, all produced after the 2000 Second Intifada, documenting and reflecting on the reality of Palestinian life. The programme is curated in association with the Palestine Cinema Days festival, which showcases some 60 films in seven cities in Palestine, and spotlights Palestinian films and stories from around the world. First launched in 2014, it is the only festival of local films that takes place in Palestine.
Palestinian are like any oppressed people in history, but in these films, directors take charge of the narrative of their people and their struggle. They are not just militants, mourning mothers, bombing victims, traumatized doctors, or defiant war reporters. They are more than just numbers in the growing death toll. They are also frustrated lovers, daughters, grandmothers, playful children, caring teachers, and so many more.
Three films in the programme tackle the shock of war itself, a crucial part of living in an occupied territory. The short documentary Ambulance (2016) shows the danger and devastation medical workers in Gaza face through the eyes of young filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly. The fear and caution on their faces is visible, but there is no time to sit down and reflect. The same thing happens in Sina Salimi’s short feature Roof Knocking (2017), which captures what a family of three does after they receive a call from the Israeli military informing them that their house will be shelled. Mohammed Almughanni’s Shujayya (2015) attempts to capture the aftermath of a conflict by following one of the many families stripped of their possessions by the 2014 war. The film gives the audience time for reflection and a chance to understand that war is not just the loss of a house, a car, a shop, or even loved ones, but also losing a sense of mental stability.
Abdelsalam Shehadeh’s To My Father (2008), Anne Paq and Dror Dayan’s Not Just Your Picture (2019), and Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias (2023) all embark on a journey to connect the dots on the history of their families through going back to the archives, family pictures and footage, and legal documents. Whether it is in Rafah, Tiberias, or Gaza, complex as each city is, all are trying to use archival footage to allow the characters to exist in places where they are not. Soualem’s family is no longer in Tiberias. The Kilani family in Not Just Your Picture is not longer in Gaza. And Shehadeh’s father is no longer in the Rafah refugee camp. The films allowed their subjects to give families their memory back, the ones they were deprived of and which have been completely scattered since 1948.
In the collection are also films that attempt to present an alternative narrative to the conflict and how tanks and shells are not just occupying the bodies of Palestinians, but also their souls. Arab and Tarzan Nasser’s Condom Lead (2013) uses a dark comic twist to describe how a married couple attempts intimacy, but they are continually interrupted by mood-killing Israeli shelling. The bombing is more than a connotation of how life is interrupted and stopped. However, in May Odeh and Dia Azzeh’s Drawing for Better Dreams (2015), children’s dreams and aspirations become a reflection on the continuity of life, with a hint of resistance, despite the trauma that these children are carrying.
Since the start of the conflict in 1948, the Israeli military apparatus gave their operations code names like Cast Lead, Protective Edge, and Swords of Iron, adding a moral-boasting, patriotic, masculine, aggressive sentiment. Palestinian cinema should be seen as a mission to take back the narrative that the world has written for them, whether as victims in some cases, or as sole aggressors in others.
Palestinian filmmakers, whether they are inside Israel, the occupied territories or in diaspora, have always been able to reflect the suffering and dreams of their people. However, the films should not be limited to the role of propaganda, showing how indestructible Palestinians are, but as stories that humanize them and give them a voice to question, remember, and dream.
