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

Faizah works in clin­ic­al research by pro­fes­sion and has been an avid Hip Hop lov­er since the early 90’s, hav­ing cre­ated her own Hip Hop event, ‘Breakin’ Bound­ar­ies’ in the early 2000’s which was pre­dom­in­antly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al events pro­moters and dan­cers to inspire oth­ers through this artform.

About Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clinical research by profession and has been an avid Hip Hop lover since the early 90's, having created her own Hip Hop event, 'Breakin' Boundaries' in the early 2000's which was predominantly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with several international events promoters and dancers to inspire others through this artform.