Palestinian filmmaker's account of efforts to preserve truth / Shameful silence of western cinema

Pars Today - The film "From Ground Zero" is a collection of 22 short films shot by filmmakers inside the Gaza Strip during the current war.

The Zionist regime, with the full support of Western countries, has launched a new wave of massacres against the defenseless and oppressed Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since October 7, 2023. Preserving the grand narratives and small stories of this event is more important than ever. 

According to Pars Today citing Mehr News Agency, Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi spoke about the production of 22 short films in Gaza, saying: "The initial idea was to focus on untold personal stories and express them artistically and technically in a correct manner, and to train these filmmakers to make their stories and showcase them in festivals and on television."

Masharawi described the production of the film as a logistical nightmare, adding: "It was difficult to get the films out of Gaza, and one of our main problems was to get the films out of Gaza and maintain constant contact with the filmmakers. Even if our connection was only through the internet, through social media, Facebook, WhatsApp, and all these things, we could talk to each other. But when you don't have electricity to charge your mobile phone, you have nothing."

The director emphasized: "Sometimes we worked 24 hours a day, without sleep, because in that area, there was electricity, internet worked, and we could send our best materials for upload. Our last film arrived two weeks ago."

Masharawi said: "Including 22 films in one work was a big challenge in terms of editing, because no one had filmed with one camera and the same settings, and the sound quality was completely different."

Masharawi also recalled that the same conditions led to the creation of a short film titled "Sorry, Cinema", which specifically addresses the limitations of making cinema in such difficult conditions.

He added: "This is one of the films that I have a special relationship with, because in life, you think cinema is your priority, and then suddenly you see, no, it's not. What's more important is to eat; to save your family and see that saving human lives is more important than cinema."

The Palestinian director emphasized: "We make films to make life better, to make life easier, to understand it more. To make human life better. This film has this element well, because the director is in a situation where he has to choose between life and cinema, and he has chosen life."

In response to the question of what the role of cinema is, he said: "Cinema is very important to me. I started making films in the occupied Palestinian territories over 30 years ago. We must protect cinema from Israeli occupation. Cinema should not only be a reaction, but also an action. We Palestinians are a nation. We have a history, language, music, color, and common food. We have many things that belong to all of us. All these can be a solid ground for making films."

Rashid Masharawi was born in 1962 in Gaza to a family of refugees from Jaffa and grew up in the Shati refugee camp. He lives and works in Ramallah and founded the "Production and Broadcasting Center" in 1996 to support local film production. He is also a financial supporter of the "Cinema with a Mobile Phone" program, which allows him to show films in Palestinian refugee camps.

He participated in the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013 with "Palestine Stereo" and later made "Letters from Yarmouk" and "Writing on Snow". "Haifa" (1995), "Waiting" (2005), and the documentary "Live Broadcast from Palestine" (2002) are among his other films. This director attended the 36th Fajr International Film Festival in Iran in 2018.

Key phrases: Israel-Gaza war, Gaza Strip, Palestinian films, Who is Rashid Masharawi?

MG/UR