Who Is Nonetheless Alive, from Swiss director Nicolas Wadimoff (The Apollo of Gaza, Operation Libertad, Aisheen, The Golden Gloves of Akka), world premieres on Sept. 3 within the Venice Days program (Giornate Degli Autori), the unbiased part inside the Venice Movie Competition promoted by the Italian filmmaker associations ANAC and 100autori. However anticipation has already been constructing, given its topicality. In any case, it options 9 Palestinian refugees from Gaza sharing their tales.
“A map of Gaza, its cities, camps, and neighborhoods. White paint on a black ground. In these roughly drawn outlines, 9 refugees who had been capable of escape hell inform their tales,” reads a synopsis. “Their earlier lives, their buried desires, the hazard, the rubble, the lack of their pricey ones. Oppressed, hindered existences, however not but decreased to ashes, not but completely plunged into oblivion and darkness. By sharing their tales, the protagonists of Who Is Nonetheless Alive try to reconnect with themselves, to cease being ghosts. And, maybe, come again to life.”
Wadimoff, in a director’s assertion, highlights: “What the survivors of Gaza have endured can’t be informed with phrases alone. Gestures, breaths, or silences may be extra telling, typically.”
And he presents: “No matter phrase we use for this marketing campaign of systematic destruction and erasure, our widespread framework for understanding the world appears to have turn out to be ineffective within the face of this unspeakable factor, which should not, nevertheless, stay unheard and unseen.”
Nicolas Wadimoff
Courtesy of Cinematheque Suisse/Mathilda Olmi
Wadimoff additionally emphasizes a hope to current the movie “past affiliations and political beliefs,” emphasizing: “The thought right here is to provide visibility to the tales of a individuals too typically dehumanized, decreased to numbers. And to take the time to hear, watch, really feel the battered our bodies and the wounded souls.”
The director even describes the movie as “a bridge between the intimate and collective expertise of a devastated individuals and the spectators, who will turn out to be witnesses. A movement to assume the unthinkable collectively.”
THR can current two unique clips from Who Is Nonetheless Alive.
The primary clip exhibits two males sharing a few of their experiences. Certainly one of them talks about missiles and his household, together with his sister’s fears – earlier than tears begin flowing.
The second man remembers a go to to a market in Cairo the place he wished to purchase a portray – earlier than making a painful realization.
In a second unique clip, a lady talks a few harrowing younger loss of life. After which, a person shares what a distinction a 12 months makes – and addresses how his physique could also be elsewhere now, however his spirit continues to be in Gaza.