Gaza’s women filmmakers turn pain into cinema as new academy launches
Eyad Al-Qatrawi reports in Al Jazeera on 27 October 2026:
‘A Sack of Flour’, an 11-minute documentary by the emerging filmmaker Mona Abu Qass, draws on her personal experience to examine Israel’s use of starvation against Palestinians in Gaza during Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave.
The film is one of five documentaries by Palestinian women screened Monday at the opening of the second Gaza International Women’s Film Festival, which also marked the official launch of the Gaza Cinema Academy.
The event took place at the site of the al-Nakheel Hall in al-Bureij, central Gaza, under the slogan ‘Women Creating Life from Death’. The hall is destroyed, like the majority of buildings in Gaza, after three years of Israel’s war, which has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians.
The film captures Palestinians’ struggle to find food in Gaza, the dangers at aid distribution points and the lives lost while trying to obtain flour. Through Abu Qass’s own experiences, ‘A Sack of Flour’ explores how the trauma of hunger continues to affect families even after food becomes available again.
Those experiences have renewed relevance as Israeli restrictions on goods entering Gaza and cuts to food assistance have caused shortages and fears of a return to famine.
“The idea for the film stems from a personal experience and a true story,” Abu Qass told Al Jazeera. “It documents daily life in Gaza, weighed down by bombardment, destruction, siege, hunger, and loss.” “I want to capture details that reveal suffering and people’s determination to hold on to their life,” she added. “I seek to show reality as people experience it and help viewers understand what the war has done to their relationships, dreams, and hopes.”
Highlighting struggles of the disabled
Another film, ‘Beyond Silence’, by emerging filmmaker and journalist Raghda al-Buhaisi, explores wartime struggles in Gaza for people with disabilities through the story of a deaf artist who never learned to read, write or communicate through sign language. His art studio in southern Gaza’s Rafah was destroyed by Israel, and his parents and several family members were killed.
After being displaced to Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, another family took him in and set up a modest studio by the roadside. His paintings reflect loss and displacement, expressing what words cannot through colour and line.
“I want to highlight the additional challenges people with disabilities face during war, including displacement, family loss, and the destruction of livelihoods,” al-Buhaisi told Al Jazeera. “Art can cross barriers of language and silence, turning an individual experience of pain into a visual message that conveys Gaza’s suffering to the world.”
Alongside those films were three others by emerging Palestinian women filmmakers – ‘Soso: The Lifeline’, ‘Remnants of Light’ and ‘Dandana’. The films document life in Gaza and the suffering brought by war.
‘Soso: The Lifeline’ follows an orphaned child and his donkey, who help people survive in Gaza. ‘Remnants of Light’ follows a filmmaker struggling with the loss of her family and home, while ‘Dandana’ tells the story of a mother whose eight children were killed, and who turns to Palestinian songs with her surviving family to cope with her grief.
The five documentaries were produced through a filmmaking diploma programme that began in March and brought together 25 young Palestinian women.