Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 16 April

Gaza (Keane/McConnell, 2019)

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Back in 2021, the documentary Gaza was released briefly in cinemas here in New Zealand but for some reason – probably workload – I didn’t review it at the time.

I regret that because I did take the time out to watch the film and was deeply moved by what it contained.

I should have helped people find it so that when this current nightmare kicked off last year they might have had some important background, and maybe already considered protesting or speaking out.

But, while it was an important film at the time, it was not a comfortable watch, and it has now been so overtaken by events that it constitutes a kind of ancient history text.

Irish filmmakers Garry Keane and Andrew McConnell were somehow able to film in the territory despite it being (as one participant describes it) an “open prison”.

While politics is never very far away, the film is more interested in the people and their stories, and those stories are often heartbreakingly mundane:

The under-employed young men who hang around the local barber as he sculpts their modern haircuts. The fishermen who are prevented by gunships from venturing more than three km from shore. The theatre director desperately trying to put on another show, despite the uncertain power supply. The children with nothing else to do but go to the border and throw rocks at the Israeli soldiers, provoking the snipers and risking their lives.

It was striking the efforts that people in Gaza would go to in order to maintain the illusion of a normal life. Somehow, they could watch flat screen tvs, practice their cello, dream of a better life.

Even that is all gone now.

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Where to watch Gaza