Gaza Women Filmmakers Turn Loss Into Cinema as New Film Academy Opens

Five documentaries made by Palestinian women were screened on Monday at the opening of the second Gaza International Women's Film Festival in al-Bureij, central Gaza. The event also marked the official launch of the Gaza Cinema Academy.

The opening took place at the site of the al-Nakheel Hall, under the slogan "Women Creating Life from Death". The hall lies in ruins, like most buildings in Gaza after three years of war that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians.

One of the films, A Sack of Flour, is an 11-minute documentary by emerging filmmaker Mona Abu Qass. Drawing on her own experience, it looks at the use of starvation against Palestinians in Gaza, the struggle to find food, the dangers at aid distribution points and the lives lost while seeking flour. It also shows how the trauma of hunger lingers in families even after food becomes available again. That theme has renewed relevance, as Israeli restrictions on goods entering Gaza and cuts to food assistance have caused shortages and fears of a return to famine.

"The idea for the film stems from a personal experience and a true story," Abu Qass told Al Jazeera. She said she wants to capture details that reveal suffering and people's determination to hold on to their lives.

Another film, Beyond Silence, by emerging filmmaker and journalist Raghda al-Buhaisi, follows a deaf artist who never learned to read, write or use sign language. Israel destroyed his art studio in Rafah, and his parents and several relatives were killed. After he was displaced to Deir el-Balah, another family took him in and helped him set up a modest roadside studio, where his paintings express loss and displacement through colour and line. Al-Buhaisi said art can cross barriers of language and silence.

The other three films are Soso: The Lifeline, Remnants of Light and Dandana. They follow an orphaned child and his donkey who help people survive, a filmmaker grieving her family and home, and a mother who lost eight children and turns to Palestinian songs with her surviving family to cope. All five were produced through a filmmaking diploma programme that began in March and brought together 25 young Palestinian women.

Festival director Ezzedine Shallah said the films give women space to tell their stories in their own voices. "They preserve stories that might otherwise never reach the screen," he said. The festival runs until October 31 and includes 73 films from 24 countries.

Filmmaking in Gaza remains difficult. Destroyed cultural institutions, scarce equipment, limited funding, and power and internet outages have restricted production, and women filmmakers also struggle to access training, opportunities and international festivals. Festival co-founder Rima Mahmoud said the war and the Israeli siege, which predates 2023, have pushed some young women to use simple methods and fund projects themselves. She said the makers need technical and financial support, translation and partnerships with festivals and platforms.

Co-founder Mai Masri, a Palestinian filmmaker based in Lebanon, said the academy has developed a diploma with al-Quds Open University, accredited by the Palestinian Ministry of Education. She said it is now seeking agreements with distributors to screen the films in educational and cultural institutions outside Palestine and at international festivals focused on women's and human rights.