PALESTINIAN director Rashid Masharawi wants to "export a different cinematic image of Gaza", now ravaged by war, as he presides over the jury at the eighth Aswan International Women Film Festival themed on "resistance cinema".
Against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, six Palestinian short films will be screened at the south Egyptian competition, which brings together filmmakers from the region. This was despite many in the Arab world calling for the suspension of all artistic and cultural activities in solidarity with Palestinians.
Masharawi is known internationally for being the first Palestinian director to be in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival when his film Haifa was included in 1996.
Born in Gaza to refugees from the port city of Jaffa, the director now lives in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
He said he "does not consider art and cinema as purely entertainment".
"If film festivals do not play their role when major disasters occur, as with what is currently happening in Palestine, then why do they exist?" he asked.
Among the six Palestinian films included at Aswan is the 14-minute documentary Threads of Silk by Walaa Saadah, who was killed last month. The film looks at the meanings of the embroidery on the Palestinian thawb robe.
Another is the five-minute film I am from Palestine by Iman al-Dhawahari, about a Palestinian-American girl in the United States who is shocked at school to see a map of the world without her country.
The 16-minute documentary A Cut Off Future by Alia Ardoghli, discusses the daily experiences of 27 girls aged between 11 and 17 in the shadow of the Israeli occupation.
In his newest film, for which work is ongoing, Masharawi said he wanted to expose what he called "the lie of self-defence".
"The occupation (Israel) blew up the studio of an artist in Gaza with paintings and statues. Where is self-defence when one kills artists and intellectuals while calling them terrorists?" the 62-year-old told AFP.
The conflict in Gaza erupted with the Oct 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the death of at least 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally.
In retaliation, Israel launched a bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza that has killed at least 34,183 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Two months after the beginning of the war, Masharawi began a new project: a support fund for cinema in the besieged strip.
The initiative "Films from Distance Zero" supports Gazan filmmakers living "under the bombing or becoming refugees" to produce their films.
Female filmmakers are active in the project, about whom Masharawi said, "always in the most difficult moments, we find the Palestinian woman on the front line".
Around 2.4 million Palestinians live in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas took power in 2007.
Theatres in Gaza closed at the end of the 1980s during the Palestinian uprising but reopened after the creation of the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s.
Hamas considers film contrary to the values of Islam. Nevertheless, last year an open-air film festival took place "taking into account the customs and traditions of the territory", a Hamas official said.
For Masharawi, now more than ever, it is necessary to support cinema and have "a different cinematic image of Gaza" reach the world to "make the truth prevail in the face of the lies of the Israeli occupation".
At the heart of Masharawi's work is identity. "It is difficult (for Israel) to occupy our memories, our identities, our music, our history and our culture," he said.
Israel "is wasting a lot of time on a project doomed to failure and which will kill many of us", he said, referring to the war in Gaza.
Masharawi said he thought the solidarity of the Arab public with the Palestinian people, "and I mean the people and not their leadership", might come "from their powerlessness and the restrictions of their systems".
"I used to dream that the Arab governments would be like their people, but I say it clearly: this has not happened, even after we have come close to 200 days of war."
The writer is from Agence France-Presse
