In From Ground Zero, 22 Palestinian Filmmakers Tell Stories of Life and Death in Gaza

In From Ground Zero, an anthology of 22 short films made by filmmakers living through war in present-day Gaza, death and destruction are everywhere — in days and nights filled with the terrifying sounds of bombardment; in heaps of concrete and twisted rebar that once housed families and businesses; in the prayers of those kneeling beside loved ones in rows of body bags lining the streets.

Now entering its fifteenth month, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza has officially killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, 60% of whom are children, women, and older people; the suffering is unimaginable and unrelenting. It is a horror that defies explanation, a grief that words cannot grasp, and one the people of Gaza continue to endure without justice, as the latest escalation in a litany of evils perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians for decades.

But amid such catastrophe, hope is not yet extinguished. On the contrary, stories of courage and perseverance remain as much a part of the fabric of daily life in Gaza as those of terror and devastation. In From Ground Zero, Palestine’s recently shortlisted entry for the Academy Awards’ best international film category, renowned Palestinian film director Rashid Masharawi curates tales of survival, love, and even joy, as expressed by artists invited to share elements of their lives in Gaza this past year through their chosen craft. The results are diverse, intimate, harrowing, and deeply moving, while the existence of the anthology itself feels nothing short of miraculous.

With each afforded three to six minutes of runtime, no one filmmaker conceives of their contribution in quite the same way, though all reflect the shared humanity of the Palestinian people. As such, From Ground Zero stands at once to document their current crisis and to demonstrate their creative resilience. Some of the films included are documentary in nature, while others are fiction; others still collapse distinctions between the two in neorealist fashion, with filmmakers literally sifting through the debris of Gaza in search of hope before inventing their own in defiance of a desperate reality.

In “No Signal,” by Muhammad Al Sharif, a man fears he may have missed a call from a relative buried under rubble, and whose daughter believes he could still be alive. This scenario, though fictionalized, is highly realistic, as seen in Alaa Damo’s “24 Hours,” which recounts one day in Gaza as endured by the filmmaker’s friend, Mosab Al Nadi; the film notes he survived three Israeli airstrikes, and being trapped in the wreckage of one, in part because he had a cell phone to communicate with rescuers. The faces of children, burdened by sorrow but occasionally still bright with joy, are front and center throughout many of the stories, showing us the future under siege in Gaza. “Flashback,” by Islam Al Zeriei, follows a young relative of the filmmaker who survived a bombing but since struggles to sleep at night, traumatized by the memory of her home’s decimation; she, like the young girl dancing through Bashar Al Balbisi’s “Charm,” finds sanctuary in moving to music that only she can hear, even amid the ruins of the life she once knew. It’s difficult to watch Wissam Moussa’s “Farah and Myriam” without your heart breaking for the two girls, Farah Moussa and Myriam Abed Elhadi, at its center. 11-year-old Farah explains she lost friends and family in the bombings, learning of their deaths after dark. “When night comes, it’s a nightmare,” she says. “Whenever the sun goes down and the moon comes out, I lose someone.” Having survived a bombing that killed her mother, sisters, and grandparents, despite being buried under the rubble for six hours herself, the slightly older Myriam is filmed by the wreckage of her home, as both girls discuss the lasting psychological fallout of the atrocities they’ve endured.

“Soft Skin,” by Khamis Masharawi, examines art therapy as one method through which others like them might process such tragedy. As an animation trainer helps children to make short films about their experience, using paper cutout techniques and an iPhone mounted on a tripod to create stop-motion narratives, we see them recreate the bombing of a city block. Later, two children explain that their mother had written their names on their arms, to ensure their bodies could be identified in case they were killed in such a bombing. In the scene they animate, they erase the writing so that they might sleep without this thought troubling their dreams. Elsewhere, Tamer Nijim’s “The Teacher,” about an educator spending a day queuing between lines for basic necessities, is a perfect complement to “A School Day,” by Ahmed Al Danaf, about a young boy who navigates through tents and ruins while on his way to a school that we soon discover no longer exists; instead, he sits down beside a shrine to his teacher, who has been killed by the Israeli military, and we realize the boy longs not only for this daily ritual of learning but also for the support and guidance that his teacher once provided.

Amid such collective mourning, it comes as a welcome surprise when other filmmakers apply a comparatively light touch. Hana Wajeeh Eleiwa’s “NO” seeks out beauty over devastation by filming a group of children singing. “Out of Frame,” by Neda’a Abu Hasna, is a profile of Ranin Al Zeriei, a visual artist from northern Gaza who returns to her destroyed studio seeking to salvage what she can. In one of the anthology’s most memorable images, the artist finds a message written in the layer of dust that coats one frame—“There is still hope, Ranin!”—before wiping it clean to reveal one of her works still intact underneath. Similarly using art to explore the suffering of displacement, Mahdi Kreirah’s “Awakening” — from a puppeteer who runs a puppet theatre in Gaza — is staged with marionettes made of disused cans. Other signs of life emerge through the mordant wit of Nidil Damo’s “All Is Fine,” about a standup comic determined to go ahead with his set despite the destruction of the venue it was scheduled for, and Karim Satoum’s “Heaven’s Hell,” where the director and star awakens inside a body bag then retraces his steps to show us how he got there. If he’ll be granted one of the white shrouds in death, Satoum reasons, he might as well benefit from its warmth while he’s alive.

Such surreal observations reflect the space between life and death that Gazans have long been forced to inhabit under Israel’s occupation. From Ground Zero is focused on sharing details of daily life in Gaza that would otherwise go unseen, rather than on the history of Palestinians’ struggle for liberation from Israel’s settler colonialism, a plight that dates back decades. But the Nakba of 1948, during which 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their ancestral lands, is seen as inextricably linked to today’s crisis in Ala’a Islam Ayoub’s “Overburden,” as the director reflects on books she left behind while fleeing her home in Gaza. One such volume, Radwa Ashour’s The Woman from Tantoura, tells of a family displaced in 1948; though her mother instructed her to travel light, Ayoub regrets not bringing this book, almost as much as she fears the parallels between her life and that of its protagonist. “What is heavier than oppression?” Ayoub reflects. “How could I have thought for a second that my books weighed more?” Mustafa Al Nabih’s “Offerings,” featuring writer Diana El Shinawy, is similarly ruminative about placing those killed in recent months in the context of long decades of dispossession. “The most painful thing is that now they are just numbers,” she says. “We know they had a past, dreams, a life, a future.”

Perhaps the most striking entries are those that most directly address the destabilizing reality of Gaza today through their very construction. Etimad Washah’s “Taxi Wanissa” follows a man and his donkey carrying goods and driving people around the city, until Washah abruptly stops the film, explaining that her brother and his children died when their house was bombed, just one day into production; in her grief, she no longer wished to keep filming. Ahmed Hassouna’s “Sorry, Cinema” is similarly eloquent. Though Hassouna labored for four and a half years prior to the current conflict to make a feature film, his priorities shifted in war. Running to save his life and help others, to intercept rations parachuted into Gaza, Hassouna apologizes for giving up on his dreams of being a director. In the film’s last shot, he destroys his clapperboard with a hammer, setting it on fire to stay warm. It’s an unforgettable image that captures the present-day existence of Palestinians as containing both despair and determination, anguish and defiance. Living in spite of all they have endured, the filmmakers of From Ground Zero are united most by their collective desire to create amid the destruction — to not simply survive but keep hope alive.

Directors: Ahmad Hassunah, Ahmed Al Danaf, Alaa Ayoub, Alaa Damo, Aws Al Banna, Bashar Al Babisi, Basil El Maqousi, Etimad Washah, Hana Eleiwa, Islam Al Zeriei, Karim Satoum, Khamis Masharawi, Mahdi Kreirah, Muhammad Al Sharif, Mustafa Al Nabih, Mustafa Kulab, Neda’a Abu Hassnah, Nidal Damo, Rabab Khamis, Rima Mahmoud, Tamer Nijim, Wissam Moussa
Release date: Jan. 3, 2025

Isaac Feldberg is an entertainment journalist currently based in Chicago, who’s been writing professionally for seven years and hopes to stay at it for a few years more. Frequently over-excited and under-caffeinated, he sits down to surf the Criterion Channel but ends up, inevitably, on Shudder. You can find him on Twitter at @isaacfeldberg.