Can animated film sensitize Israelis to suffering in Gaza?
A human rights organization has produced a short animated film about a girl in a candy factory to explain the conditions in Gaza caused by the blockade.
Human rights organization Gisha has found an original way to inform Israelis about the distress and hardships of factory owners in the Gaza Strip. In partnership with the sweets manufacturer Al-Awda (The Return), it produced an animated short film titled “Gaza’s Candy Kingdom.” Thus, the organization that works for the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the West Bank and especially in the Gaza Strip, which is often subjected to closure, hopes to crack the wall of indifference among Israelis about what is happening an hour and a half drive from Tel Aviv.
In the film, a girl named Noor (which means “light” in Arabic) finds a 10 shekel coin (about $2.85) while on the way home from school. With glee, she goes to buy an ice cream cone and wins a ticket to visit the large sweets factory owned by Muhammad Tilbani, who greets her with open arms.
“I don’t know if you know,” he tells the surprised little girl, “but I decided to give you the whole factory as a gift.” During a tour of his factory, she is exposed to the impossible task of manufacturing in Gaza — that is, running a factory under the conditions of closure, war and the lack of a reliable supply of electricity, which has caused the factory to abandon modern technology and return to the days of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution.
Tilbani is a real person. He has owned Al-Awda for 40 years. “Two years ago, Gisha, with whom I worked for years, approached me and suggested making a film centered on my factory. I agreed immediately,” he told Al-Monitor. According to Tilbani, he knew that other factory owners in Gaza, who experienced a similar struggle for survival, would reject the offer out of fear of incurring even greater economic disaster in the form of retaliation by Israel.
