Gaza ghetto
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Gaza Ghetto is the short form title of a documentary film produced by Joan Mandell, Pea Holmquist, and Pierre Bjorklund in 1984 about the life of a Palestinian family living in the Jabalia refugee camp. Reportedly the first documentary ever to be made in Gaza, the movie features Ariel Sharon, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and soldiers on patrol "candidly discuss[ing] their responsibilities."[1]
[edit] The film
In his book, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Hamid Naficy describes Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Family, 1948 - 1984 as an "early important film" on the Palestinian refugee situation.[2]
The film follows a refugee family from the Gaza Strip who go to take a look at the site of their former village, now the site of a Jewish settlement inside Israel. As the grandfather and great-grandfather point out an orchard and sycamore that used to belong to Muhammed Ayyub and Uncle Khalil, a Jewish resident emerges and orders them to leave, claiming they need a permit to be at the site. The mother tells him that, "We work in Jaffa and Tel Aviv and that's not forbidden," to which he replies, "Here it's forbidden." Ted Swedenburg describes this scene in Memories of Revolt: The 1936-1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past and writes: "While chasing the refugee family off, he asserts forcibly that the site is his home."[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Palestinian Family. New Day Films. Retrieved on 2008-01-24.
- ^ (2001) An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691043914.
- ^ Ted Swedenburg (2003). Memories of Revolt: The 1936-1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. University of Arkansas Press, 72. ISBN 1557287635.
