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"From Ground Zero" is Palestine's official entry for Best International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards. (2024)
Watermelon Pictures
"From Ground Zero" is Palestine's official entry for Best International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards. (2024)

Palestine's Oscar entry: 'From Ground Zero'

Digital Gym Cinema continues with its For Your Consideration (FYC) series of films, allowing filmgoers a final chance to see 2024 releases that have won attention during this busy awards season. This week in addition to Palestine's "From Ground Zero," You can see "Anora," "Queer," "Flow," "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat," and "Emilia Pérez."

Best International Feature Film category requirements

The category of Best International Feature Film is a little different from the main Oscar categories that audiences are most familiar with. In this category, each country is allowed to officially submit one film. Then a special committee watches all submitted films and votes to create what is referred to as the shortlist (usually around 15 films). Next, the shortlisted films are viewed by a separate nominating committee who select the films that will make up the five nominees. And finally, the winner is decided by all eligible Academy members who have watched the nominated films.

For countries with a small film industry selecting a film to enter can be easy. But for a country like India that produces upwards of a thousand movies a year, deciding which film is submitted can be controversial and emotionally charged. This year India submitted "Laapataa Ladies" over the critical favorite "All We Imagine as Light." And their choice could be deemed flawed since it did not make it to the short list and perhaps "All We Imagine as Light" would have fared better.

In 2003, Palestine submitted its first official entry, "Divine Intervention," for the then named Best Foreign Film category. It was not nominated. But two years later, "Paradise Now" became the first Palestinian entry to receive a nomination in the category with "Omar" being the second, and both films were directed by Hany Abu-Assad.

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This year Palestine entered its 17th submission in the now renamed Best International Feature Film, and "From Ground Zero" has been shortlisted with the nominations set to be announced on Jan. 23.

Palestine has two other Oscar hopefuls this year: the Palestinian-Israeli documentary "No Other Land" (also shortlisted but in the Best Documentary Feature category), and Mohammed al-Mughanni’s short film "An Orange from Jaffa" (shortlisted in the live-action short film category).

"Soft Skin" is one of 22 short films curated for the feature film "From Ground Zero," Palestine's official entry for this year's Best International Feature Film Oscar. (2024)
Watermelon Pictures
"Soft Skin" is one of 22 short films curated for the feature film "From Ground Zero," Palestine's official entry for this year's Best International Feature Film Oscar. (2024)

'From Ground Zero'

"From Ground Zero" is a collection of 22 shorts curated, coordinated and funded by Gaza-born, Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi. While the film merits being shortlisted for the Oscars, it does not have the backing of a big player like Netflix to fund an ad campaign and make the film readily available to both mainstream audiences and Academy voters. "From Ground Zero" has a United States distributor in Watermelon Pictures, but the company is young and small in comparison to Netflix and Sony.

U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore (who won the Best Documentary Oscar for his film "Bowling for Columbine") recently came onboard to support the film as an executive producer. But Moore has a complicated and controversial relationship with both Hollywood and the Academy and his addition to the team for "From Ground Zero" may not boost its chances for Oscar gold.

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“From Ground Zero” is a combination of documentary and docu-fiction in which the filmmakers provide very personal stories about what living in Gaza today means. The fact that these filmmakers could produce these films is something of a miracle. While cell phones and editing software make it easier for films to be made anywhere, these filmmakers faced extreme hardships and challenges. Just finding a place to charge a cell phone can be a challenge. In "Sorry Cinema," filmmaker Ahmed Hassouna has to burn his clap board to make a fire and as he does he comments, "All I can say is: Cinema, forgive me."

Filmmakers incorporate archival footage of Gaza from before the current war as a contrast to current life, as in "Jad and Natalie." And in "24 Hours," Alaa Damo uses cell phone video to document how one man came under attack three times in 24 hours and to be dug out from rubble twice.

"24 Hours" depicts how one man came under attack three time in one 24-hour period. It is one of the 22 short films in "From Ground Zero." (2024)
Watermelon Pictures
"24 Hours" depicts how one man came under attack three time in one 24-hour period. It is one of the 22 short films in "From Ground Zero." (2024)

The most affecting film for me was "Soft Skin." In "Soft Skin," Khamis Masharawi oversees a makeshift animation stand where children make an animated film with paper cut outs about living through bombings and having their mothers write their names on their arms and legs so that their bodies can be identified if they are killed. The children reveal the markings but one girl explains how she rubbed them off of her body and her younger sibling's because thinking about what it meant was keeping them awake at night.

In "Taxi Wanissa," Etimad Washah interrupts her narrative short about a Gazan donkey to explain that she simply can't finish her film because of personal losses she has just suffered. Sometimes there is dark humor, as in "Hell's Heaven," where a man steals a body bag, explaining that he'll be put in one when he dies so why not get some use out of it before he dies since he can sleep in it at night and stay warm.

But what is most amazing is that so many of the films highlight joy, hope and beauty despite horrific conditions. In the film "No," Hana Eleiwa and her friends adamantly say no to hate, violence and "everything that destroys our hopes."

"From Ground Zero" eschews overt politics in order to focus on a diverse array of personal experiences by filmmakers living in Gaza now. The film shows a Palestinian side to current events, a side that we do not get to see widely in U.S. mainstream media. And while the conflict stirs strong passions and emotions on both sides, the film tries to remind us that there are innocent people on both sides and we should have enough empathy and compassion for all of them.

San Diego is fortunate to have both an Arab and a Jewish film festival to showcase as many voices as possible. The San Diego International Jewish Film Festival starts Jan. 27. Karama will present the San Diego Arab Film Festival in April.

10 Palestinian films to watch

  • "Divine Intervention" (2002)
  • "Paradise Now" (2005)
  • "The Time That Remains" (2009)
  • "Lemon Tree" (2009)
  • "Five Broken Cameras" (2011)
  • "Omar" (2013)
  • "200 Meters" (2020)
  • "The Teacher" (2023)
  • "Prophets of Change" (2023)
  • "No Other Land" (2024)

I cover arts and culture, from Comic-Con to opera, from pop entertainment to fine art, from zombies to Shakespeare. I am interested in going behind the scenes to explore the creative process; seeing how pop culture reflects social issues; and providing a context for art and entertainment.
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