On Gaza: Between Two Crossings (Yasser Murtaja, Rushdi Al-Surraj) and Gaza, Footbullet (Iyad Alasttal), with in-person conversation with Ahmad Alnaouq
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Date: Saturday, May 25th
Time: 1:30pmBetween Two Crossings بين معبرين
Between Two Crossings بين معبرين is a documentary film that follows the journey of Nour, a Palestinian student from Gaza who had a scholarship to enrol in Portland State University in the United States. But in order to get there, Nour struggled to find a way to travel through the only two gates separating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the world: Erez Checkpoint, controlled by Israel; and Rafah Crossing, controlled by Egypt.
The documentary is a presentation of the extreme restrictions of freedom of movement that Gaza has endured for decades and shines a humanising spotlight on everyday people navigating the anxiety of waiting and attempting to cross the border.
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Year: 2018
Original Language(s): ArabicGaza, Footbullet غزة رصاصه بالقدم
As part of the organisation of sporting, cultural and solidarity meetings between a team of amputee footballers from Gaza and the French amputee football team, the project coordinator, filmmaker-director followed with his camera the Palestinian footballers in Gaza before their departure, and during their stay in France.
Genre: Documentary, Sports
Year: 2021
Original Language(s): Arabic, French About the filmmakers:
Director Yassir Murtaja was a Palestinian journalist and filmmaker from Gaza. He was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper while covering the protest of the Great March of Return on April 6, 2018. Many people around the world witnessed Yassir’s wish before he died through his Facebook status: that one day he wanted to be able to see Gaza and the world from the window of an aeroplane.
Co-Director Rushdi Al-Sarraj was Yassir's best friend and partner. He was killed in Gaza on October 22, 2023, by a targeted bomb from an Israeli warplane, dropped on his house.
Yassir and Rushdi both started and worked hard on a media production company called Ain Media. We share this film in honour of their memory.
Iyad Alasttal is a Palestinian film director. Born in Khan Younis, he has directed award-winning documentaries about the Gaza Strip. He also works as a translator for French delegations and journalists in Gaza. Born during the First Intifada, Alasttal points out that he has never known anything other than colonisation or the blockade of Gaza. However, he considers himself lucky. Even if his family has never left Palestine, he was able to leave thanks to the NGO Corsica Palestina, which helped him obtain a university scholarship to go to Corsica to study cinema at the age of 24. Thanks to this experience, he speaks impeccable French and has an acute vision of the importance of stories and narratives in any political struggle. Alasttal has used his passion for images and sound to help his people, to help Gaza and more broadly to help the Palestinian cause. Iyad was in Gaza until March 2024 but has managed to make it safely to France.
About the guest:
Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza and the co-founder of We Are Not Numbers, a collective which trains the next generation of Palestinian writers to publish their stories in English. Ahmed obtained a Chevening Scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree in international journalism from Leeds University. Ahmed is journalist and presenter at Palestine Deep Dive. His writings have been published in many publications including The Washington Post, The New Arab and Arab News. He has appeared live in interviews across the Western media, speaking on channels such as Sky News, the BBC and MSNBC.