Hidden Outside, but Not Hidden Inside
Posted by Shohini Chaudhuri
In the face of occupation, constant threat of violence and scarce resources, filmmakers from Gaza and Iraq are creating wry, intimate, insider’s portraits of their war-torn circumstances
A new slant on life in Gaza as a ‘culture of hiding’ is offered in Kamkameh, one of eight Arab shorts featured in Space and Memory in the War-Torn City. At a time when Gaza is increasingly hidden from the outside world through fortified fences and travel restrictions, Kamkameh records the filmmakers’ experience of walking around the territory and reflects on how life under blockade and continual military assaults by Israel have weighed on Gaza’s people.
A debut film by two women directors, Areej Abu Eid from An-Nuseirat and Eslam Elayan from Rafah, Kamkameh will screen in the UK for the first time. It is produced by Shashat Women’s Cinema, an NGO based in Ramallah led by Alia Arasoughly, which is dedicated to supporting women filmmakers and holds the longest-running annual women’s film festival in the Arab world. Shashat has received awards for its excellence from the Palestinian Ministry of Culture and has been recognised for its inspiring practice by EUROMED.
Shashat has screened films in Gaza since 2006, as part of its annual women’s film festival, then began training women filmmakers there in 2011. ‘We realised that we had a responsibility to train young women filmmakers in Gaza as we did in the West Bank, and that it was necessary for Gazan women to be filmmakers to express their reality,’ says Arasoughly. ‘We had a lot of problems bringing in equipment and trainers because of the siege. We relied on Gazan film professionals for the day-to-day training and followed up on email, Skype and Vimeo for feedback and mentoring and monitoring.’
Abu Eid and Elayan were among the first to take part in the training programme. What made them choose this theme and approach? ‘It’s the way that we are living in Gaza and had to be spotlighted in a film’, states Abu Eid. Previously, daily life in Gaza wasn’t like that, she says. People have been affected by their circumstances through the years, including the blockade. As a result, both the culture of the community and people’s individual outlooks have changed. ‘People start to feel comfortable this way, because they can do whatever they want through hiding: “we are hidden outside, but not hidden inside”. It’s kind of contradictory, I know. Kamkameh is showing this concept.’
Arasoughly, who produced the film, highlights its strengths: ‘I love the subjective and moody nature of it … it takes one theme and looks at Gazan reality through it and what comes across is a very heart-breaking expression of how living in a state of siege externally, the Israeli siege of Gaza, manifests itself internally – what Fanon referred to as the internalisation of oppression.’
The title Kamkameh relates to the culture of hiding. ‘Literally, it means huddling tightly together to the point where individuation becomes impossible, implying it is hidden, covered …’ explains Arasoughly. ‘The point is the covered part that people can’t see from outside’, Abu Eid adds.
Shashat is currently preparing to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its women’s film festival. Its next project is a series of productions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip taking ‘the theme of “What’s Tomorrow” to give voice and expression to Palestinian youth despair.’ Abu Eid herself intends to work with Shashat for her next film.
Life under US-led occupation in Iraq is given wonderful comic touches in War Canister, produced by the award-winning Leeds-based production company Human Film. Andy Guy of Human Film explains: ‘During Saddam’s regime, arts and culture in Iraq were strictly censored to ensure a certain level of “cooperation” with the politics of the time.’ When the dictator was toppled, ‘filmmaking, or creative arts in general, were practically non-existent. The coalition invasion plunged the country further into turmoil, but now people are learning to create once again.’
Human Film joined forces with Iraqi filmmakers Mohamed Al-Daradji and Oday Rachid, who set up the Iraqi Independent Film Center (IIFC) in Baghdad to meet production needs and teach and inspire a new generation of filmmakers. ‘Iraq has had a very troubled past, but it is our hope that we can begin to change that through initiatives such as this. We saw an opportunity to make a real change.’ Students at the IIFC are encouraged to ‘tell real-life stories’, particularly about children growing up in Iraq and their daily struggles. ‘It is ever more important to show the world the issues people face in Iraq and, for us, filmmaking is the best way to communicate these stories.’
In War Canister, the fuel shortage in Iraq is dramatised through the stories of children. The protagonist is a ten-year-old deaf boy, who steals an oil canister to help his struggling family. The script and production evolved at a short film workshop at the IIFC under Al-Daradji’s supervision. ‘Mohamed Al-Daradji decided on a set of rules to be followed in each film: all scenes had to be shot using a static camera, no music was allowed in the montage, and the film actors had to be non-professional’ – rules that director Yahya Al-Allaq believes contributed to the film’s success.
When I ask him what made him decide on comedy as an approach to the subject matter, Al-Allaq replies: ‘The truth is that I like comedy and particularly black comedy. Through black comedy we poke fun at our problems and we produce them in a comic way.’ In one scene, the deaf boy boards a bus and becomes friends with the bus conductor, a boy of a similar age who suddenly bursts into song to their (and our) mutual delight.
The profoundly moving dimensions of this comedy are enhanced when you hear the back-story. When he was casting actors, Al-Allaq went to the orphanage in Baghdad. ‘After a few auditions, I chose two children, Sharaf and Ahmed [who play the bus conductor and deaf boy, respectively], and I trained them to improve their performance. After the training, Sharaf asked me: “Is this film going to be in the cinema, is everyone going to watch it?” I said, “Yes”. The child said: “I composed a song – can you put it in the film?”’ When asked what motivated him to compose the song, he replied: ‘I miss my mother everyday. She left us here in the orphanage. I wish for her to hear my song, wherever she is. Maybe then nostalgia will pull her back to me, so she can take me back and I get to sleep in her arms once again.’ With that, Al-Allaq decided he had to include the song in the film.
Al-Allaq is now working on his first feature film, called Amerli, which follows two children on the run after ISIS destroys their hometown, Mosul in North Iraq, and murders their parents. He is currently at development stage, seeking funds to shoot in Iraq next year.
Kamkameh and War Canister will be screening at Space and Memory in the War-Torn City at The Mosaic Rooms on 18/5/16, 6.30pm. This is the first event in the series Crisis and Creativity: A Season of Contemporary Films from and about the Arab World curated by Shohini Chaudhuri.