Cannes listens to the 'voice' of Palestine

The decision to include a film set in Gaza in the Cannes Film Festival's official selection comes at a particularly urgent time for the small coastal enclave, said twin Palestinian filmmakers Arab and Tarzan Nasser.

"There is a need to give a platform to the voice of Palestine, the Palestinian story, the Gaza story, in an international festival like the Cannes Film Festival, with a wide audience from all over the world," Arab Nasser told Reuters on Tuesday.

The brothers' film "Once Upon A Time in Gaza," which is competing in the second-tier Un Certain Regard category, premiered at the festival in southern France on Monday.

"Once Upon A Time in Gaza" begins in 2007, the year the group Hamas took over Gaza, with low-level drug dealer Osama (Majd Eid) running a falafel stand that serves as a front.

His underling Yahya (Nader Abd Alhay) looks after the restaurant and pines for a better life outside Gaza.

After an incident with a corrupt cop, the story fast-forwards to 2009, when Hamas has fully taken control, and Yahya is cast in a cheap-looking TV series commissioned by the group about a militant who died a hero in the fight against Israel.

(From left) French producer Muriel Merlin, Palestinian-French producer Rani Massalha, Jordanian actor and radio host Majd Eid, Palestinian directors and screenwriters Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser, Syrian actor Nader Abd Alhay, French producer Marie Legrand and Algerian-Palestinian and producer Rashid Abdelhamid pose during a photocall for the film "Once Upon a Time in Gaza" at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes on Monday. Agence France-Presse

Yahya is meant to symbolise a whole generation of Gazans who have been stuck in the coastal enclave with few perspectives, said Tarzan Nasser.

"Maybe his lot would have changed had Israel allowed him to leave the Gaza Strip," said the director, who along with his brother has been in exile in Jordan for more than a decade.

The film's name is meant to capture the rhythm of Gaza at the time, where there is no stability or continuity, and "an incident now would become a 'once upon a time' tomorrow," said Arab Nasser.

But it has a different meaning with a view to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw 251 taken hostage.

That attack triggered Israel's campaign that has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated Gaza.

Now "we refer to all of Gaza as 'once upon a time,' because Israel destroyed Gaza from north to south and has damaged all means of life," he added.

"All the memories, all the incidents that one has in one's memory of this place, have all vanished, Israel has destroyed it completely."

Reuters