From Ground Zero (2024)
Right after watching the film our convenor इ put forth a simple question: How do we judge films like these? Would it be fair to comment on their quality: writing, camera, acting etc.? Or are the films and their makers beyond a mere critique of their craft? I don’t think our motley class of initiates could settle this matter. Sure ‘quality’ must be judged based on the resources (financial, talent) available. Even so among these 22 films there are those that possess ‘something’ — an image, a line, or even a piercing stare — that seizes the heart and halts its beating pulse even if for a second. And then there are those that are mere montages of an experience so remote, not just in distance but in the very quality of their expression and circumstance for surely this must be too strange to even qualify as fiction. But the sum of these 22 films is that it resists providing just one ’snapshot’ of what is unfolding in Gaza. Underneath a sky that is forever abuzz and afire are a people who cannot be folded into a single prototype Palestinian. The 22 films are as significant as those that might not have made the cut but for the silly limitations of time. The cup is full and it spills into the ocean, viscous, afloat. Why can’t I judge this film? Because these are witness testimonies.