Gaza

This documentary is set in the Gaza Strip. Two Irish filmmakers worked there for four years. What they were after was whatever falls outside the news bulletins. The camera looks at ordinary daily life. Family intimacy sits at the centre of the film. There are landscapes that stay behind the headlines. The story turns around a small set of carefully chosen people. Their own words carry the film. The conflict is always in the background and the film does not narrate it. There is rubble on screen too, but not at the centre. What is shown is the life people try to keep going among that rubble. The Strip has seen conflict and upheaval throughout its history. This narrow coastal territory at a crossroads between continents has long been in the hands of powerful neighbours. The interest of the film is in daily life rather than in politics. The eighty six minute documentary is a Canadian, German and Irish co-production Andrew McConnell and Garry Keane finished in 2019.