FLASHPOINT Screening: To Shoot an Elephant

To Shoot an Elephant
Friday, 21 January 2011 – 2.00 p.m.
Saturday, 22 January 2011 – 10.00 p.m.

2009-Col-112 min
Director: Alberto Arce & Mohammed Rujailah

What is it like to live in the Gaza Strip, an area of about 140 square miles that is home to one and a half million Palestinians? Unemployment is high and almost half the population is under fourteen year. In ‘To Shoot an Elephant’ director Alberto Arce zooms in on life in Gaza, which is occupied by Israel. As a member of the International Solidarity Movement, one of the few aid organizations that is still active in the Gaza Strip, Arce was filming there late 2008 and early 2009, when fighting between Israel and Hamas intensified. Approximately 1,300 civilians were killed in the hostilities and air attacks that took place during that period. Arce was one of the few foreign journalists that witnessed the shelling from within the Gaza Strip. The filmmaker turns his camera on the ambulance personnel. They take the dead and wounded off the street, putting their own lives on the line. When they try to shelter a corpse, they get fired at.

Awards: Best director award – Florence’s Festival dei Popoli 2009; Golden Butterfly Amnesty International’s A Matter of ACT Award for the best documentary – Movies that Matter Festival 2010