Gaza’s women filmmakers turn pain into cinema as new academy launches

Al-Bureij, Gaza Strip – 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.