Palestinians in Gaza producing film on Schalit kidnapping in Hebrew
The Palestinian film industry, which is dominated by amateur artists, struggles to get a wider Arab audience.
By ARIEL BEN SOLOMONGilad Schalit arrives from captivity 370(photo credit: REUTERS/Handout )
Palestinians in Gaza are producing a movie named Losing Schalit that will tell the story of Hamas’s abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.Gaza lacks an established film industry. The lead actor of the film, Arafat Balousha, whose character is a Hamas fighter, told Al Jazeera that Palestinian “resistance cinema” is not well developed both because of the dispersion of talented Palestinian artists all over the world, and because of political differences at home.The Culture Ministry in Gaza is collaborating on the movie, that seeks to show the resistance and steadfastness of the Palestinian people, according to a report by the Qatar-based TV network, which showed a short clip of the film.The clip showed an actor apparently playing an Israeli official speaking in Hebrew to an Israeli soldier, with an Israeli flag in the background.Hamas sees Schalit’s capture in 2006 as a great success, as it led to a prisoner exchange in 2011 that released more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.The director, Mustafa al-Nabi, told Al Jazeera that he attributes the relative absence of Palestinian political cinema to the repression and occupation of the Palestinian people.An Arab film critic told the network that Palestinian movies fail to make it to Arab satellite channels for two main reasons: Because of the amateur nature of the Palestinian film industry, and because of the fear of being stigmatized as a channel supporting “terrorism,” he said.A Culture Ministry official told AP that the Gaza government gave $95,000 for the production of the film.In October, the IDF discovered a Gazan tunnel that reached 1.7 km. into Israel, close to Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. The tunnel could have been used for terrorist attacks or kidnappings.
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