Amid bombed-out buildings, Palestinian circus performers juggled and cartwheel and tried to spread joy despite war and famine, as shown in a documentary screened at the Cairo International Film Festival.
Shot during the summer of 2024, as war raged in Gaza, “One More Show”, co-directed by Egyptian Mai Saad and Palestinian Ahmed el-Danaf, followed the daily life of the Free Gaza Circus.
Danaf, 26 — who is still in the devastated Palestinian enclave — recorded footage of the clowns, jugglers and stilt walkers to bring Saad’s idea to life.
“It was the first time I heard someone want to make a film about daily life, not just the bombing and the suffering,” he told AFP, in a text message.
“The obstacles in front of me were quite clear: communications down, difficulties moving around, constant danger and the lack of equipment. But I felt we had to see it through.”
Slowly but surely, the footage was fed to Saad in Cairo, who put the film together over the course of a year.
“Everything we see in the news is from above — you only see people as these numbers, numbers, numbers… I wanted to make a film from below, from among the people,” the 41-year-old director told AFP.
The result is a heartfelt film in which humour, fatigue and the innocence of childhood are woven together, all under the incessant fear of Israeli air strikes.
– Helping each other –
Performers are seen taking turns scraping what little face paint they have left, helping each other prepare for a show in a school-turned-shelter.
Dozens of children gather around a clown with a bright red nose, singing, laughing and clapping along.
The point “was for these kids to see something besides the war and destruction that surrounds them all the time”, troupe founder Youssef Khedr told AFP by phone from Gaza.
A few weeks into filming, Israeli forces separated north Gaza from the rest of the tiny Palestinian territory.
Short distances became impassable, and the directors had to rely on footage shot by the performers themselves as they escaped to shelters, scrambled to put any kind of show together, or spent terrifying nights under air strikes.
Khedr — who specialises in gymnastics and parkour — fled the circus tent in Gaza City and headed south.
From his tent in southern Gaza, he told AFP he “did his best to keep training” so he could continue performing.
But, as the humanitarian conditions in Gaza worsened, the potatoes and eggs that some performers are seen preparing soon became a luxury.
In July, the circus announced it was suspending activities because of “the severe famine”, saying they could not “offer psychological support to those who haven’t had a bite to eat to ease their hunger”.
– ‘Exhausted by hunger’ –
By August, the United Nations confirmed that famine had set in in Gaza City, the main urban hub in the territory, where the health ministry says 157 children have starved to death.
“Even we as artists have been exhausted by hunger,” Khedr said.
“There were days when we couldn’t find anything to eat. I would buy 20 grams of sugar for $15, and sometimes all we had was formula milk,” he added.
The war was unleashed after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.
More than 70,000 people have since been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Since the war began, two of the troupe’s performers have been killed and three injured in strikes. The building in northern Gaza where they used to rehearse and host workshops was destroyed.
After a fragile truce went into effect in October, the circus performances began again, but with far fewer resources than before.
Danaf spent months shuttling from shelter to shelter to find an internet connection so he could send Saad the footage.
He could not make it in person to the premiere, as Palestinians are not permitted to leave Gaza.
But, in a way, he did make it to the red carpet. Saad carried a tablet with a video call through the premiere and onto stage when the film won the Youssef Cherif Rizkallah Audience Award.
The award’s $20,000 prize money will go towards rebuilding a centre for the circus in Gaza, Saad told AFP.
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© Agence France-Presse
