From Ground Zero, compiled by Rashid Masharawi and executive produced by Michael Moore, is a poignant compilation of short films showing everyday life in a destroyed Gaza.
From Ground Zero
by Alexa DalbyCAUTION: Here be spoilers
It’s almost too tragic to bear, though somewhat sanitised and personalised from what you see in news reports on television. This is a compilation of 22 short films, animations and video diaries, made by artists and film makers, not journalists, showing what life is really like for displaced people in Gaza – people’s daily life in a refugee camp, their sheer tiredness of it, their longing for what was, what they have lost and for normality again, grief at the deaths of loved ones and the despair of having to desperately search alone for their bodies under the rubble of what was their house. This was last year: the situation is even worse now, so who knows what is left or who is still alive.
Yet somehow, amid the destruction and the constant interruptions of the sound of missiles overhead, there is music and hope for the future of Palestine. It ends with a poignant homemade animation using found materials.
From Ground Zero screened and was reviewed at the London Palestine Film Festival, in Toronto, is available on Mubi and is a contender for the International Feature category of the 2025 Oscars, for which it was longlisted. It is released on 12 September 2025 in the UK.
