Solidarity With Palestine 2025

FROM GROUND ZERO+ THE UNFINISHED STORIES

“From Ground Zero +: Gaza’s Unfinished Stories” consists of seven short films and one feature-length film, all shot in Gaza.

Made possible through the initiative and fund established by the acclaimed Gazan filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, these films were produced with donations and partnerships from around the world. They portray the dreams, hopes, wishes, longings, talents, creativity, artistic spirit, and the resistance of a people living under attack, and their resistance against genocide and occupation.

Last year, Rashid Masharawi became the voice of Gazans by enabling the production of the anthology film “From Ground Zero: Gaza’s Untold Stories,” which brought together 22 short films. Through that project, he allowed Gazans themselves to bear witness to the genocide unfolding before the eyes of the world. From a city reduced to ashes and ruins, these films showed real images of people displaced from their homes — forced to survive among rubble or in makeshift tents, struggling with the pain of losing loved ones, enduring hunger, thirst, and lack of medicine, deprived of their most basic human rights, trying to live in unlivable conditions. Many films are made about Gaza, but nothing can replace the truth told by Gazans themselves.

From the untold stories to the unfinished ones, these films serve as a record of the suffering endured by Gazans and as a reminder that one day, those responsible must be held accountable. The project gives people in Gaza the means to express themselves directly, underlining how essential filmmaking, cinema, art, imagination, and creativity are in the face of such horrific experiences.

These films also reveal that Gaza is home to painters, actors, writers, musicians, and filmmakers — artists who resist through their art. By doing so, they affirm that cinema in particular, and art in general, are powerful forms of communication and resistance.

“From Ground Zero +: Gaza’s Unfinished Stories” presents reality exactly as it is — without the need for any script — and etches it in history.

Personally presented by Rashid Masharawi, recipient of the Justice Defender Award at the 15th International Crime and Punishment Film Festival, From Ground Zero + reminds us all of Gaza’s resistance and truth, and reaffirms our collective call for justice through the power of truth and art.