Where Olive Trees Weep

A video project meant to highlight the human cost in Palestine.

GAZA brings us into a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us a cinematic and enriching portrait of a people attempting to lead meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict. Throughout its entire history the Gaza Strip has been witness to conflict and upheaval. From ancient times this tiny coastal territory, located at a crossroads between continents, has been a pawn whose fate rested in the hands of powerful neighbours.

Its main focus is on the plight of the Palestinians which can be seen as the most enduring residue of the modern encounter between the Arabs and the West. Edward Said traces the course of European involvement with the Near East via the Crusades to Napoleon's campaign in Egypt and the French and English entrepreneurs, adventurers and empire builders who came in his wake.

The film provides a historical overview of the history of the Palestinians between 1948-1974 and shows the living conditions of Palestinians in territories occupied by Israel since 1967.

After the latest Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, once the bombings cease, the reality of the conflict disappears from the media. The documentary is a trip to Gaza, where through various characters we know the violation of human rights they suffer daily and the post-war blockade and situation that the Palestinian population is trying to survive in the Gaza Strip. A journey through their cities, their people and also, somehow, their history under the occupation of Israel.

Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Family, 1948 – 1984 is a documentary film about the life of a Palestinian family living in the Jabalia refugee camp. The film, created by Joan Mandell, Pea Holmquist, and Pierre Bjorklund in 1984 is believed to be the first documentary ever made in Gaza. The film features Ariel Sharon, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and soldiers on patrol "candidly discuss[ing] their responsibilities." The film follows a refugee family from the Gaza Strip who visit the site of their former village, now a Jewish town in Israel. As the grandfather and great-grandfather point out an orchard and sycamore fig that belonged to Muhammed Ayyub and Uncle Khalil, an Israeli resident appears and tells them to leave, claiming they need a permit to be there. 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."

The tape-recorded words “erase it” take on new weight in the context of history and war. When the state of Israel was established in 1948, war broke out and hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated in its aftermath. Israelis know this as the War of Independence. Palestinians call it “Nakba” (the Catastrophe). In the late 1990s, graduate student Teddy Katz conducted research into a large-scale massacre that had allegedly occurred in the village of Tantura in 1948. His work later came under attack and his reputation was ruined, but 140 hours of audio testimonies remain.

When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the mistreatment of Palestinians, they battle the old guard to create a new movement opposing Israel’s occupation, and recentering Judaism itself.

The Israeli filmmaker Shai Corneli Polak records the building of the 'security wall' through Palestinian territory at the village of Bil'in. The villagers protest mostly peacefully, while the Israeli army doesn't react peacefully. By now the Israeli High Court has ruled that the building of the wall was illegal.

A documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has lasted for more than 50 years. Contains some interviews with the children in this conflict.

From the very first day of Israel-Gaza conflict in 2014, filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly has been there with his camera. He follows a team of paramedics in an ambulance, eventually becoming a core member who bears witness to their perilous and heartbreaking rescue work. Ambulance tracks the harrowing chaos amidst a state-run military operation on civilians.