First film festival in Gaza focuses on female causes

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Hanin Kulab, a young Palestinian filmmaker from Gaza, is looking forward to showing her talents through the first ever feature film festival in the Islamic Hamas movement-ruled Gaza Strip.

Kulab, a 25-year-old female, produced her film "It was a dream" which will participate in the festival. The film talks about the Palestinian female prisoners in Israeli jails, and the pain and torment they suffer in prisons.

As her film was shown in one of the halls in Gaza city amid the applause of admired audience, she said that the festival is a golden opportunity for young filmmakers to show their creativity during the tough years in the Palestinian enclave.

The film festival, a rare opportunity for Gaza population due to the absence of movie theater in the strip, was inaugurated at the Women Affairs Center in Gaza city on Monday, and it focuses on enabling Palestinian women and supporting their cause. A total of 53 films from the Palestinian territories and other Arab and European countries joined the three-day event.

In addition to "It was a dream", Kulab also joined the festival with another film called "By their eyes" which talks about some women journalists' experience in covering the three-week Israeli military operation Cast Lead on the Gaza Strip in early 2009.

"I focus my film on the personal experience of women, either women imprisoned in Israeli jails or women work as photographers," Kulab told Xinhua.

Itimad Weshah, another Gaza female filmmaker and the festival coordinator, told Xinhua that the major goal of the festival is to shed light on the talents of the Arab and Palestinian women filmmakers, as well as improve the abilities of the Palestinian female filmmakers and support their production.

"We faced some difficulties in organizing the festival, mainly in receiving copies of the films to join the festival from abroad. We have managed to guarantee the arrival of the participating films through friends and other unofficial ways," said Weshah, referring to the Israeli blockade.

The organizers also found difficulties in dealing with ruling Hamas government to gain the permission, mainly though the ministry of interior and information, Weshah said.

"The most significant message from the festival is that the Palestinian women can produce films and express their viewpoints and ideas on complicated social and political issues through movies," said Weshah.

Samar Drimly, the media coordinator in the Women Affairs Center, told Xinhua that the center aims to spark equality between men and women in the Gaza Strip as well as ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and establishing an independent Palestinian state.

"Holding such an event and making films by Palestinian, Arab and foreign women is a clear declaration that women are able to break all barriers and overcome all obstacles," said Drimly.