Review: From Ground Zero

Directors:  Ahmad Hassunah, Nidal Damo, Neda’a Abu Hassnah etc.

The advent of both the internet and smaller, more versatile methods of filmmaking mean that there are fewer and fewer ‘quiet’ wars or secret atrocities. Regardless of the biases and/or censorships of global news corporations, dispatches from within warzones like Palestine continue apace. From Ground Zero compiles 22 short films made within the borders since the Israeli genocide began near two years ago. Indeed, it arrives on UK shores well over 12 months after its initial festival run, making it already an historic document of relatively early reactions to an onslaught still ongoing. 

How many of those cataloguing Palestine in crisis would have dared dread that it would have continued so long? Like many anthologies – particularly those ambitious enough to include this many entries – there’s a scatological consistency to the works provided, but they’re all so unified in their immediate themes that they feel of-a-piece. In combination they take on a vaguely schizophrenic form; one body crying out in different voices from a shape-shifting visage. Form undulates. Many are mini-documentaries, but there are dramas here, too. And animation. Even puppetry. Gaza is a relatively small place, and the recurring locations between shorts proffer a sense of network and community. Of overlapping biomes within a climate of persistent emergency (and are those some of the same kites flying in their shared skylines?).

All filmmakers are worth crediting, so we have (in running order) “Selfie” by Rima Mahmoud, “No Signal” by Muhammed Al Sharif, “Sorry, Cinema” by Ahmad Hassunah, “Flash Back” by Islam Al Zeriei, “Echo” by Mustafa Kulab, “Everything is Fine” by Nidal Damo, “Soft Skin” by Khamis Masharawi, “The Teacher” by Tamer Nijim, “Charm” by Bashar Al Babisi, “A School Day” by Ahmed Al Danaf, “Overburden” by Alaa Ayoub, “Hell’s Heaven” by Karim Satoum, “24 Hours” by Alaa Damo, “Jad and Natalie” by Aws Al Banna, “Recycling” by Rabab Khamis, “Taxi Waneesa” by Etimad Washah, “Offerings” by Mustafa Al Nabih, “No” by Hana Eleiwa, “Farah and Mirayim” by Wissam Moussa, “Fragments” by Basil El Maqousi, “Out of Frame” by Neda’a Abu Hassnah and “Awakening” by Mahdi Kreirah.

All confront the immediate threat-to-life in some form or another, or act as requiems for past lives. Almost bracketing the piece, Mahmoud’s “Selfie” and Abu Hassnah’s “Out of Frame” spotlight young women returning to bombed out homes to discover their former identities crumbled and blanketed with debris, framing the missile drops as catastrophic implosions of social, artistic and career developments. Other pieces, like Nijim’s “The Teacher” or Khamis’ “Recycling” itemise the tumult to basic community infrastructure and access to clean water. Simply charging a phone to stay connected and – crucially – informed can be a day’s work or more. 

Taken en masse as laid out here, one of the things most immediately resonant in From Ground Zero is a sense of community and persistence. A dogged determination to continue existing by any means. Hope perpetuates, even as nerve judders, or gutters like a flame. But the light burns on. Only once does it feel as though the weight of loss and devastation overcomes the project. Etimad Washah’s Bressonian “Taxi Waneesa” ends with an abrupt to-camera address from the filmmaker admitting her inability to complete her short following a harrowing personal development. Yet that any of these creative expressions exist seems like a miracle in the face of the hazardous surroundings. Washah ought feel no shame nor failure. 

Each viewer will find vignettes they connect with more than others as is the nature of such a compendium, but that this project exists at all becomes an incredibly moving acknowledgement of the power and seduction of the cinematic medium itself. We crave movies and, since their inception, we’ve been compelled to make them, even in the most precarious situations. They are the prevailing art form of the modern age. Every one of us can become a director. Every life a movie. For this viewer, Ahmad Hassunah’s “Sorry, Cinema” was among the more unexpectedly moving inclusions, offering a wannabe blockbuster director shucking his clapperboard into kindling because – right now – living is more urgent than cinema. But even this within a cinematic form. The compulsion continues.

From Ground Zero presents a warzone in which every single day is a new exercise in survival, where victories come in all shapes and sizes, and defeats can be addressed anew the next day, God willing. The spirit of making it is what burns brightest. And, intriguingly, I don’t think “Israel” is uttered once. 

Given the very facts of its making, this flick-book from within a city-turned-ghetto amounts to incredibly urgent cinema, political in-and-of-itself. It is a statement of intent; to stay alive, and to keep the cameras rolling so that all can bear witness. A perpetual shared memory. And if the calls within harken from a (very) recent past, their echoes reverberate just as loudly in our present and on into the future.

I hope these cameras all keep rolling.