By Joe Burns, Commission member
The Commission part-sponsored the Leeds Palestinian Film Festival event at Wheeler Hall on 30 November. Rather than an individual film, this event showed several short films. The connecting thread for them was that in the previous 12 months, despite immense difficulties, there have been two film festivals held within Gaza itself. This event showcased a couple of these films along with a short documentary about how they went about putting on a film festival in the rubble of Gaza.
This event provided a window into life in Gaza in 2024 – where mainstream media outlets are not allowed to go. The devastation is shocking. In one of the films there was a buzzing sound for a significant portion of it – which was revealed to be the sound of Israeli reconnaissance drones flying overhead 24 hours a day. However, this was an incidental aspect of the films.
The strongest message coming through to me was one of the hope and resilience of humans in the face of the most difficult of circumstances. The usual location used for showing films has been destroyed. The projector for showing films had been destroyed. The short documentary showed two of the organisers going to a stall to recharge their phones and a laptop as there is no regular power supply. There were discussions about having to show the films during the day, as there were too many bombing raids by the Israeli Defence Forces at nighttime.
In the end, they recovered a large TV on a trolley and showed the films among the rubble with people standing round or sitting wherever they could.
The festival organisers remarked at one point about how the responses they had received from many different countries had buoyed them to continue with the organisation of the festival. Perhaps they didn’t realise the impact their work would have on others in the West.
If they can continue to try and provide some level of ‘normality’ and continuity in the appalling circumstances in which they have to survive then the least that we can do is to continue to show solidarity in whatever way we can.