The depressingly inspiring short film collection From Ground Zero: Stories of Gaza, created by Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, proves that the people will dance even when the floor is burning. Masharawi commissioned twenty-two short films about life under war in the Gaza refugee camps by resident filmmakers. Many are documentary films, but there are also some fiction films on display. There is even animation featured, all made under the most inhospitable conditions.
The opening film, Selfie, directed by Reema Mahmoud, introduces the viewer to the world of tents and collapsed towns, with Mahmoud going over the ruins of her life before the war. No Signal, directed by Mohammad Al Sharif, is a fiction narrative featuring a man (Thaer Abu Zubaidah) looking for his brother Omar buried in the rubble. His niece Nour (Nour Al Sharif) sits in a Snoopy t-shirt, crying while the sounds of explosions get closer. Sorry, Cinema by Youssef Mashharawi is an autobiographical short story in which a filmmaker has to abandon his dreams and gather wood to make fires to survive. Mashharawi had an award-winning film shown at a festival, but he couldn’t go due to the war. Even though he has worked to be a filmmaker his whole life, Mashharawi has never seen his work in a theater with an audience, as there are no cinemas in Gaza. It seems like they would have been blown up by now anyway.
“The thing that rises from film after film is the undying hope that remains in the face of complete devastation.”
Masharawi even curates some experimental shorts for From Ground Zero, with striking results. Echo, directed by Mostafa Kulab, is an experimental short film in which Kulab sits and smokes a cigarette while looking out into the ocean’s waves. Over this serene image is the frantic sound of a phone call from a horrible calamity. It is an excellent way to show how the trauma hangs in the air like dust from fallen buildings. Even more experimental is Fragments by Basel El Maqousi, which almost borders on beautiful despite the rancid ugliness of the situation.
A very unusual take on dancing in the ruins is Everything Is Fine, directed by Nidal Damo. In this autobiographical short, Damo reenacts his preparation to perform stand-up comedy amongst the wreckage. There is a scene of a bombing during a shower that causes a comic reaction to a situation you would not think could be funny. It is one of many images across the films that shows how people will continue to maintain the routines of civilization even when everything is broken.
"…proving that movies can be made even on the edge of destruction."
