REVIEW | ‘FROM GROUND ZERO’ CLOSING NIGHT AT THE LONDON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL

By Faizah Cyanide • On Reviews ,

To mark the end of the Lon­don Palestine Film Fest­iv­al, the film com­pil­a­tion — From Ground Zero was screened across sev­er­al loc­a­tions. It was a col­lec­tion of 22 short films which were 7 minutes or under, made by Palestini­an dir­ect­ors in Gaza. This film was dir­ec­ted by Rashid Mashar­awi who foun­ded the Mashar­awi Fund for cinema and film­makers in Gaza to help sup­port young Palestini­an film­makers to tell their stor­ies through film.

Each of the 22 short films are about the raw human exper­i­ence, filmed in slightly dif­fer­ent formats from fic­tion, exper­i­ment­al film, anim­a­tion, and doc­u­ment­ary. They explore themes of sor­row, joy, hope and resi­li­ence as the gen­o­cide in Gaza is unfold­ing in real time. These films reveal the truth of the extent of Palestini­an suf­fer­ing which has been cen­sored by West­ern media as if does not even exist. Dar­ing to share these stor­ies is an act of res­ist­ance against the illeg­al occu­pa­tion of Palestine, as not only does the Israeli gen­o­cide act to remove the Palestini­an pop­u­la­tion, but it is also try­ing to erase their cul­ture and history.
The film opens up with the sound of Israeli drones, a prom­in­ent sound through­out many of the short films shown. This is the sound that haunts Palestini­ans and reminds us of the relent­less physiolo­gic­al trauma, and sleep depriva­tion that they are deal­ing with.

In the film Everything is Fine, a stand-up comedi­an tells us he is liv­ing in con­stant fear, but tries to main­tain a level of nor­malcy. He will take his shower (after queueing up for hours to use a com­mun­al shower) then do his stand-up show like clock­work. The routine keeps him going and he hopes to return to his at the end of the “war”. Joy is one emo­tion the Palestini­ans are being robbed of in Gaza. As he shows up to the ven­ue to do his show, we see that it has been des­troyed. Nev­er­the­less, the comedi­an con­tin­ues to per­form in the streets upon the rubble. He says, “War or no war, I will take my shower and do the show.”

The films edu­cate us on the cur­rent situ­ation of lack of food, buy­ing bread more expens­ive than in Lon­don or Par­is, cans of food are all expired, we see people scrap­ing up spilt flour from the floor as it’s mixed with sand. There is a lack of pri­vacy in tents as Palestini­ans grieve the loss of their fam­ily mem­bers killed, while they pro­cess the trauma, unable to sleep. We are told to, “Enjoy life, life is beau­ti­ful but war is ugly.” Palestini­ans are deprived of their dreams, with no one to help them, no med­ic­al aid and insec­ur­it­ies. We even see a man sleep­ing in a body bag as he has no blanket.

The film, No Sig­nal shows a man search­ing the rubble for his broth­er, but there is a lack of resources such as bull­dozers or equip­ment to move the rubble. It seems an almost impossible task, but he has hope and does not give up.
In the film, 24 hours we hear from a man who has ended up being dug out of the rubble 3 times in 24 hours. They are liv­ing in con­stant fear and there are no safe zones.

Moth­ers writ­ing names on the limbs of their chil­dren so if they were killed and limbs blow apart they can identi­fy their chil­dren. The trauma this causes the chil­dren and inab­il­ity to sleep, so they try to rub the writ­ing off their bodies.
In, The Teach­er we see a child get­ting ready to go to school in the chaos of the gen­o­cide only to arrive at the graves­ite of his teach­er who was mar­tyred. He takes out his books and begins read­ing, car­ry­ing on teach­ing him­self. The UN have expressed con­cerns over the schol­asti­cide ongo­ing in Gaza as Israel tar­gets schools, teach­ers and aca­dem­ics. Edu­ca­tion also becomes a strong form of resistance.

At the time of the screen­ing all film­makers were still alive, and they knew their films were being screened glob­ally which has made them immensely proud that their voices were being heard. That hit of real­ity to what I was watch­ing made me feel so uncom­fort­able to sat in a warm cinema in Lon­don with drinks and snacks know­ing I could go home after this, but the situ­ation in Gaza con­tin­ues and the Palestini­ans have no moment of rest from their suffering.

If you want to under­stand the Palestini­an suf­fer­ing on a human level, this is the deeply mov­ing cine­mat­ic piece which will help you do that, but also for you to under­stand where hope lies with­in the cracks of despair.

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Faizah Cyanide

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