Arab Film Festival’s ‘From Ground Zero’ Documents Gaza Life During Wartime

Consider the enormous difficulty of making a feature film in Gaza, even before the war of the last 13 months. Ahmed Hassouna persevered for four and a half years, he recounts in his blistering short film, Sorry Cinema. When he finished in 2019, Palestine didn’t have even a single movie house to show it.

Hassouna includes a quick-cut montage of production shots from Istrupya (Senseless Loss), which feel terribly nostalgic juxtaposed with contemporary verité footage of bombed-out buildings and parachuted-in supplies. In need of firewood for cooking, he chops up his film slate (or clapperboard), ending Sorry Cinema by watching his dreams literally go up in smoke.

A highlight among the 22 shorts that comprise the Arab Film Festival’s centerpiece film, From Ground Zero, Sorry Cinema eloquently conveys both the intangible costs of war and the impulse to make art in impossible circumstances.

Another haunting first-person piece, Ala’a Islam Ayoub’s Overburden, revisits the young filmmaker’s decision not to take any of her beloved books when she and her mother hurriedly fled the city of Gaza for the north. “What is heavier than oppression?” she asks bitterly. “How could I have thought for an instant that my books weighed more?”

Palestine’s official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, From Ground Zero screens Wednesday, Oct. 30 at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland. Editor’s note: The screening is sold out, and the film is not included in the festival’s online program, though attempts are being made as of publication to add an additional screening.

Spearheaded and produced by Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, From Ground Zero encompasses films of varying ambition and accomplishment. The overall quality is remarkably high, especially given the uncertain and dangerous conditions on the ground.

The most jarring case of those conditions — reality, that is — eclipsing fiction is Taxi Wanissa, a neorealist portrait of a man who makes a living carrying goods and passengers on a wagon pulled by his donkey Wanissa. Suddenly, filmmaker Etimad Washah appears on camera to recount the deaths of her brother and his children, her ensuing depression and inability to continue production. With that, the screen goes black, and the only appropriate reaction is stunned, respectful silence.

Another kind of horror invades Khamis Masharawi’s Soft Skin. Several endearing refugee children in colorful clothes make cutout figures for a stop-motion animated film drawn from their experiences of war. They show off their names, scripted by their mothers on their arms and legs in bold black ink.

Why? No explanation is needed by this point, just seven films into From Ground Zero. We’ve already seen enough piles of rubble — destroyed homes — where some people are buried and others are pulled from the wreckage. Think about it: children don’t carry ID.

Given the sanitized state of TV news and Americans’ general indifference to what goes on anywhere outside the U.S., From Ground Zero is an enormously essential compilation that should be seen widely. Does that read like a political comment? Surely people with strong opinions who have taken a side in what is characterized as the war between Israel and Hamas will watch From Ground Zero — and read reviews — from their own perspectives.

But I did not hear either entity invoked once across 22 films. No fingers are pointed. Aside from Ala’a Ayoub’s utterance of “oppression” and several invocations of “martyrs” to describe loved ones who were killed in air raids, the causes and sources of the violence are secondary to surviving it.

The subjects of the films, start to finish, are innocent civilians. Consequently, the vignettes of life during wartime that comprise From Ground Zero take their place, sadly, in the long annals of human suffering. “I don’t know when the war will end,” writer Diana El Shinawy says in Mustafa Al Nabij’s Offering. “We will all need therapy to endure all the pain. No one is OK.”

These 22 films are documents of powerlessness, and they are also cries of protest at that lack of power. For all the shots of rubble and tents, of people queuing for water and bread, From Ground Zero is less a tour of hell than an affirmation of life. In fact, some viewers may find it hard to believe the hope and optimism willfully summoned by filmmaker Hana Eleiwa in No. Dismissing suggestions to interview victims, she hangs out instead with a band that rejects despair. “No to everything that destroys us,” declares singer Rahaf Shamali, smiling in the sunshine.

You may be surprised, as I was, that a couple of the films take a mildly comedic slant. Nidal Damo’s Everything is Fine follows a stand-up comic (!) traveling to and prepping for (outdoor haircut, makeshift shower) his gig that night. In Hell’s Heaven, Karim Satoum awakens in a body bag, then displays a mordant wit reminiscent of Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman in revisiting the events of the previous day that led to this moment.

You have to admire the spirit and the character of filmmakers seeing, or seeking, a glimmer of light among the clouds. Even then, Sartoum won’t, or can’t, ignore the truth. “Nothing remains of this city except the sea,” he says in voice-over, doggedly putting one foot in front of the other.

‘From Ground Zero’ plays Wednesday, Oct. 30 at The New Parkway as part of the Arab Film Festival, which continues through Nov. 3, 2024.