Gaza Strip
James Longley
American documentary filmmaker James Longley traveled to the Gaza Strip in January of 2001, planning to stay for two weeks and collect preliminary material for a film about the Palestinian intifada. He threw away his return ticket and stayed for another 3 months, shooting over 75 hours of material throughout the Gaza Strip.
Gaza Strip follows a range of people and events following the election of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, including the first major armed incursion into "Area A" by IDF forces during this intifada. The film is filmed almost entirely in a verite style, presented without narration and with little explanation, focusing on ordinary Palestinians rather than politicians and pundits. More observation than political argument, Gaza Strip offers a rare look inside the stark realities of Palestinian life and death under Israeli military occupation.
Reviews
"This documentary
is vastly revealing ... and it's bigger
than a summer blockbuster, more important
than all our movie stars or the academy
awards ..."
- StaticMultimedia.com
"...
well-made and harrowing documentary ...
you can understand my desperate desire not
to believe what I was seeing."
- Jordan Hiller, www.bangitout.com
"...
offering sequences that could rival Bunuel
or Fellini ... one of the most important
documentaries of recent times."
- Phil Hall, Film Threat
"The
absence of voice-over narration and talking-head
interviews gives his portrait of daily life
under duress a riveting immediacy ... in
the best verite tradition, there are moments
in ''Gaza Strip'' that disclose a wrenching
human reality deeper and more basic than
any politics."
- A. O. Scott, The New York Times
"An
unflinchingly honest portrayal of a population
under siege. As a perspective that is largely
excluded from American attention, it deserves
the widest possible audience."
- Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
"Longley
has presented convincing evidence that the
Israeli occupation has created criminal
and dehumanizing conditions for the people
of the Gaza Strip. One would hope that this
documentary would be broadcast on American
television to reach the largest possible
audience."
- Pamela Nice, AlJadid
Relevant
Links
Gaza
Strip - official film website
Related Items
Book:
Men in the Sun & Other Palestinian Stories
(Ghassan Kanafani)
Book:
Palestine (Joe Sacco)