Film festival opens amid Gaza's ruins
Children and residents from the Shajaiyah neighborhood in Gaza, which suffered mass destruction and massacres during the 2014 war, attended the Karama Human Rights Film Festival, featuring poignant movies about the tragedies.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — It was not Jack Nicholson, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt nor Angelina Jolie who walked down the red carpet at the Karama Human Rights Film Festival, but Fatima al-Jaabari and children Ahmed al-Rai, Mohammed Abu Shamali and Salsabel Abu Shanab, as well as hundreds of other stars from the Gaza Strip, specifically the Shajaiyah neighborhood.
In his interview with Al-Monitor, the festival's director, movie director Khalil al-Muzayen, said he'd insisted that the opening be held in the Shajaiyah neighborhood, which was destroyed in the recent war on the Gaza Strip that raged from July 8 to Aug. 26, 2014.
Muzayen spread out the 60-meter (197-feet) red carpet between the rubble of destroyed houses, which formed part of the backdrop to the festival. He did not set up a giant stage or place a golden ribbon to be cut; he simply spread out the red carpet as a sign of the three-day festival's opening on May 12.
As the red carpet unrolled, patriotic songs played and dozens of children gathered. The festival opened among the ruins in al-Kurba, the most afflicted area of the Shajaiyah neighborhood, near al-Tawfeeq mosque.
