ERASMUS IN GAZA

88 minutes, 2021 (54 minutes for the Mediterranean Young People’s category)
Director: Chiara AVESANI and Matteo DELBò (Italy)
Production: Arpa Films (Spain)

Riccardo, an Italian medical student in his final year, goes on Erasmus. His destination: Gaza. He wants to become a war surgeon and is writing his thesis on wounds caused by explosive bullets. Entering Gaza is not easy. He has to obtain authorisation from three different authorities: the Israeli army, the Palestinian authority and Hamas. As soon as he arrives, the pressure builds. The future of the exchange programme depends on his experiences. The approaching war doesn’t help, he begins to have panic attacks. When the war resumes, Riccardo has to make difficult choices. Crossing the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip he also crossed the border between adolescence and adulthood.

Chiara AVESANI is a journalist. For many years she worked for RAI on investigative programmes such as Agorà and Report. She has worked with Al Jazeera as a freelancer on reports about the exodus of migrants. She has appeared on Compass, a foreign policy programme and America Tonight, a showcase for thought-provoking reporting. She was also a Sky News correspondent in Mosul. Since 2016 she has teamed up with Matteo Delbò on “Frontline of peace”, a series of web documentaries on the efforts of Iraqi civil society to rebuild the country. “Ghadeer” is the project’s first episode.

Matteo DELBÒ is a film-maker. Having graduated from the Rome International Film School, he won the David di Donatello Award for Best Short Film. For a long time he made live programmes for Italy’s leading digital newspaper il Corriere della Sera, covering natural disasters, demonstrations and in 2013 operations to rescue migrants from the Mediterranean. He also worked for Al Jazeera on the programme Witness and for Sky News from Mosul. With Chiara Avesani he made, “Ghadeer”. He was recently DoP on “One More Jump”, a documentary which won the Young Mediterranean People’s Award at the 2020 PriMed. He is currently working for RAI.

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ENFANTS DE DAECH, LES DAMNÉS DE LA GUERRE

(Children of Isis, the War’s Damned)

70 minutes, 2021
Director: Anne POIRET (France)
Production: Cinétévé (France)

There are thought to be tens of thousands of children of Isis – their parents pledged allegiance to the caliphate and now, in post-Isis Iraq, they are stigmatized, with no legal existence. Without papers they have no access to medical care, food aid or, most importantly, school. Others, recruited or kidnapped and then brain-washed by the terrorist organization as the Jihad’s helpers, are today imprisoned in inhuman conditions. Tens of thousands of others are still held in displaced persons’ camps in Syria, along with the most radicalized women. Their catastrophic humanitarian situation has been further weakened by the Coronavirus crisis. This first-ever investigation allows these minors to talk, children left behind by the new Iraq, whom only a handful of NGO’s are trying to help. The documentary is a journey across lands blasted by war – the Mosul region, Iraqi Kurdistan and northeastern Syria. The film-makers set off to meet this young generation which, having survived first the Islamic State’s rule, then the war of liberation with its catalogue of violence, is now trying to find a future somewhere between resilience and revenge. How can we help them find a place in society and prevent them from becoming a threat to the international community?

Winner of the 2007 Albert Londres Award, author and journalist, Anne POIRET has been making documentaries for 15 years, in particular: “Mon Pays Fabrique des Armes”, (France 5); “Syrie: Mission Impossible” (Arte); “Bienvenue au Réfugistan” (Arte); “Soudan du sud: fabrique d’un Etat” (Arte) and “Namibie: le Génocide du IIème Reich” (France 5). She is especially interested in the grey zones of post-war. Her latest documentary “Mossoul après la guerre” (Arte), won the Special Jury Award at the FIGRA 2020.

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AS I WANT

79 minutes, 2021
Director: Samaher ALQADI (Palestine)
Production: Prophecy Films (Egypt)

Cairo, January 25th 2013: A series of sexual assaults in Tahrir Square on the day of the second anniversary of the revolution. In response, a massive outpouring of angry women spills onto the streets. Director Samaher Alqadi joins them, unsure where this story will take her.

Palestinian film-maker Samaher ALQADI comes from a family of nine children. She grew up in the Jalazone refugee camp, near Ramallah. She worked for the Palestinian Ministry of Culture before being accepted at the Cairo High Cinema Institute. An emerging voice in Arab documentaries, her films focus on the changing status of women and dissident artists in the Middle East. “As I Want” is her first feature-length documentary.

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THE GEOGRAPHIC MAP OF THE SELECTED FILMS AT PriMed…

The map of selected films is available here. Find all the places affected by the subjects of the selected films.