Documentary cinema is a window onto the world. In this case, the window opens onto a particularly brutal vista: the ongoing 2023 war between Israel and Hamas, waged now on the population of the Gaza Strip.
One month out from the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, in which hundreds of Israeli civilians were massacred, that war has engulfed the already battered and occupied Gaza Strip. Israeli survivors of the October 7 attack - many of them peace activists - are held hostage by Hamas as their own government drops bombs all around them, on hospitals, homes, schools, refugee camps. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has exploded. Hundreds of Israelis and thousands of Palestinian innocents have been killed. We are witnessing an unfathomable tsunami of Israeli and Palestinian death and suffering that even documentary cinema seems insufficient to address. We add our voices to those calling for an immediate ceasefire and release of the hostages.
This program, then, is intended as one possible response to the atrocities: a window onto Gaza itself, featuring non-fiction films by varied filmmakers from Palestine, Israel, and around the world.
DAFilms.com is powered by Doc Alliance, a creative partnership of 7 key European documentary film festivals. Our aim is to advance the documentary genre, support its diversity and promote quality creative documentary films.
