Yalla Cinema: Featuring two short Palestinian films
Gaza- Yalla Change
As part of Yalla Cinema initiative film screenings, SDF featured two Palestinian short films: Six Miles Out and One Minute. Both films reflect daily life in the Gaza Strip attended by a group of young men and women in Gaza City.
The first film, Six Miles Out: a day in the life of Gaza fishermen, accompanies the fishermen on a fishing trip and showcase their relationship with each other and their relationship with the sea and how to spend their day on the boat. The film features gentle moments of the fishermen singing and joking with each other. The viewer assumes for a minute that it is a normal fishing trip until he/she is shocked by the scenes of the Israeli military boats firing at the fishing boat. The film presents the policies of Israeli restrictions on the fishermen from firing at boats, arresting fishermen and reducing fishing area. A number of fishermen also speak to the camera directly about their love for the profession and how they inherited it from their fathers and their devotion to their profession despite all the risks.
The film One Minute presents the story of a young mother and her daughter alone in the apartment during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in 2014. With the power outage, darkness dominates all the scenes in the 10 minutes film. The short moments of light in the film were either when there was a strong bombing or when the mother opens her phone to try to contact her husband or prepare the milk for her child. The film ends with a text message from the Israeli army ordering the evacuation of the area within five minutes.
The fact that the events of the two films focused on the Palestinian situation in general and the reality in the Gaza Strip in particular enriched the discussion session following the films. Many participants from the audience reflected on similar memories experienced during the war and also discussed the reality of the fishing industry in Gaza.
Nareman Hwaihi, project coordinator at Social Development Forum, said that local films showcases the reality of different groups from the Gaza Strip and analyzes their daily struggles. It is very important to discuss a visual production that showcase our society in addition to featuring other Arab and foreign works. Yalla Cinema Initiative.
Yalla Cinema initiative aims to bring back the spirit of cinema to the Gaza Strip and use it in promoting a range of social, national and human rights values for youth through featuring a variety of international and Palestinian films that carry positive messages.
The initiative comes as part of a series of initiatives implemented by young people within the Yalla Change project- for the second consecutive year.