W E  A L L  L I V E  I N  G A Z A

We All Live in Gaza
Feature length documentary for international distribution

THE WORLD WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

This project description is being written as the deadly assault on Gaza continues unabated.  Yet before October 7th 2023, inside the tiny territory there existed what could easily be called a “perfect creative storm”.  Creativity fermented. Here the walls told no lies. As one walked the streets there was a barrage of street art, images chronicling a contemporary history, a history fragile, tenuous, and evolving.  Well documented, it is safe to say that our project’s visual record may be one of only a very few to have captured the breath of this work.

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Summary
 
It has been 14 years since the imposition of the on-going total siege, precipitating thousands of lives lost, chronic devastation of the physical infrastructure, tens of thousands bombed into homelessness, a stripping away of personal freedoms and dignity, crushing economic stagnation.
 
The bottom line.  A tragic reality.  The facts on the ground documented in the territory in 2008, literally can be documented again today in January 2024 ten fold.  The situation is at a total breaking point.
 
 And this leads to the existential question of “Why? 
 
There are no easy answers.  Yet for the two million women, men and children locked inside concrete walls and razor-wire barricades it is a question that must be addressed.  It is a moral imperative.


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 “I think artists are more like messengers.
To be an artist means we are journalists, but in another way.”    Malak Mattar
 
Twenty-two-year-old artist, Malak Mattar, featured in our documentary perfectly sums up the essence and style of our project.  The documentary is being assembled as a rich visual collage.  A collage with dozens of on-camera observations, images, personal narratives, songs, performances, all woven together into a visual tapestry.  
 
As with all well-conceived collage/montage when viewed from a distance all the elements form a cohesive whole.  The same can be said for our documentary.  For the artists who created in their bedrooms, tiny studios and on the canvases of walls and rubble their visions reflect transient moments in history. The work speaks as eloquently as any news report, political essay or academic analysis.
 
Within the context of documentary nomenclature, We All Live in Gaza combines elements of the Poetic, Observational, Participatory and Performance genres. We as co-producers share our personal stories to put the narrative into context.  Music and visual montage are woven throughout to facilitate emotional connection to the audience.  We encourage our subjects to talk directly to camera in a conversational environment.  We observe and document “real time events” conveying the human realities of being on the front line of urban warfare.  We have literally been shot at and have lived under bombardment.  We continue to look beyond the obvious for the nuances and ironies of this confounding conflict. 
 
­­­Our story is told in the first person by Atif Eisa and his son Rami, along with co-producer/director Maurice Jacobsen.  Atif is founder of The Media Group, Gaza City. Today his son Rami manages the company…. or better said, Rami manages what remains of the production company after its video studios, cameras, editing facilities, and achieves were destroyed in two separate bombing attacks.  In years past and continuing today the company is providing media services to international news organizations including the BBC. 
 
Under the blockade, the citizens of Palestine have been stripped of their human rights, stripped of their humanity.  As video makers  we see ourselves as facilitators, using our multiple media tools to help those experiencing the siege share their stories.
 
 Visually, the documentary travels the length and width of Gaza, meeting among others, Jabar Wishah, Deputy-Director of the Palestine Center for Human Rights; medical student Deema Michel;
Mahmoud Zahar, founding member of the political organization, Hamas; hip-hop artist Ayman Mghamis; farmer Mohammed Obed, and; artists Basel Maqousi, Malak Mattar, Maysa Yousef and Laila Kassab.
 
The project uses the literary conceit of chapter headings, giving context to the historical benchmarks which propel the territory’s history; an immensely complex and layered history not easily told.  As reference markers, music and art give perspective, joining the past to the present.
 
It is a common truth; art in its many forms, visual and aural, is a universal language. Music and art transcend borders, cut across politics, speak directly to both heart and mind.  There is a core belief underpinning the We All Live in Gaza project.  Despite physical deprivation, despite the loss of loved ones, loss of property, loss of freedom, the need to create transcends all.  This is as true to today as it has been since time immemorial.