One can’t get in or out of Gaza. It’s January 6, 2009, the eleventh day of the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip. Air-raid bombings and intensifying land attacks are taking place behind the insurmountable wall which separates Gaza from the rest of the world, but witnesses have been unable to penetrate the Strip to date. It’s been impossible to force the air-tight block to the international press imposed by occupying forces. Only the dead, the wounded, and some trucks bringing medication pass the Egyptian frontier. Those come to describe the war have to make do with the odd phrase snatched from first-aid helpers, as all lenses point towards the dense columns of black smoke rising in the distance from between the houses on the other side. All of a sudden, as if by chance, a tiny crack in the impermeable defence system occurs, and a very small number of people manage to get in. Amongst them, a director with a TV camera. This film is about what that camera was able to film across the border, the simple tale, using those images, of daily life in Gaza during the last tragic days of operation ‘Cast Lead’.
Stefano Savona
Born in Palermo in 1969. He studied archaeology and anthropology in Rome and took part in various digs in Sudan, Egypt, Turkey and Israel.
He started to work as an independent photographer in 1995. Since 1999, he has been mainly working as director and producer of documentaries.
His works include numerous video installations such as the ones for the collective exhibition Mutations (2000) at Bordeaux’s Arc-en-Re^ve, La Città infinita (2003) and Dreams (2004) at Milan’s Triennale, D-Day (2005) in Paris at the Centre Pompidou, Bombay-Maximum City (2006) in Lille at the Espace Tri-Postal, and the following documentaries; Roshbash Badolato (1999), A Border of Mirror (2002), Notes from a Kurdish Rebel (2006) International Prize from SCAM at the Festival International du Réel in Paris, nomination for Davide di Donatello, Genziana d’oro at the Trento Film Festival 2007, Premio Casa Rossa at the 25th Bellaria Film Festival.
Since 2007 he teams up steadily with the production company Pulsemedia. His last film PiomboFuso-CastLead (2009) won the Ciné Cinéma Special Jury Prize at Locarno Film Festival 2009 (Filmmakers of the Present Competition) and an Honorable Mention Image Award at RIDM – Rencontres internationales du documentaire Montréal 2009.
