FROM GROUND ZERO REVIEW

“The overall film is quite powerful and heartbreaking, and it absolutely must be seen.”

I haven’t really gotten involved with the whole debate involving the Middle East, mainly because it’s such a heated and divisive topic. Although I’m Jewish, I don’t really side with one faction or another, mainly because it seems like a classic case of “two wrongs don’t make a right.” I’m not a fan of war or terrorism or violence (especially against women and children), and the whole situation just got so out of hand, even though it started very much with the Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023.

That’s why From Ground Zero – an anthology film submitted by Palestine as its Oscar selection – is something I might have been nervous about watching, let alone reviewing. In fact, before getting to it, I decided to go watch the shortlisted doc, No Other Land, because I wanted to go into this film with a little more perspective on the situation in the Middle East. That mostly took place in the years before the horrible Hamas attack, and it’s a very specific story of a village of thousands being forcibly evicted by the Israeli army, who is trying to coopt the villagers’ rightful land for a testing base. It was pretty horrifying to watch, especially as they tear down buildings, including an elementary school, and things probably only got worse after the events of Oct. 7 (where that film ends).

As mentioned, From Ground Zero is an anthology made up of nearly two dozen short films by a variety of filmmakers, mostly on the doc side of things, though a few of them delve into animation and even puppetry. Each film is fairly short, some only a few minutes long, depicting the main subject(s)’ experiences living in Gaza during the non-stop bombing that’s followed the Hamas attack.

I’m not sure how much I want to go down the rabbit hole by discussing each of the individual short films separately, since they’re all poignant in their own way, if you can imagine living in a warzone where you can barely sleep, since you’re woken up by bombing in the middle of the night, or even worse, your building is bombed directly, potentially killing yourself or loved ones. That’s the main gist of the films, though we do get a wide range of perspectives, everyone from teachers to a stand-up comic to a filmmaker with aspirations resorting to using his wooden clapper (or whatever it’s called) as firewood. The running theme is that these people have been forced to leave their homes, live in tents, sharing portapotties with strangers, scrounging for the meager amount of food and supplies they receive, sometimes having to dig their families and dead friends out of the rubble. As you can see from the film, this has become their pervasive way of living, and it’s absolutely dreadful and also inexcusable.

I don’t know much about the producer and project supervisor Rashid Masharawi and how he found the various filmmakers and chose what to include – apparently, it was a complex system of pitches and working with each filmmaker – but the results are a solid 112 minutes about what living in Gaza has become. One particularly interesting decision is made by Hana Eleiwa in her short “No,” where she wants to focus on joy and hope and love and music rather than the negative, which makes that short truly stand out. There are other shorts where a young woman contemplates which books to bring with her when evacuating her home. One filmmaker literally gives up on her short, explaining that the personal tragedy that hit her while making the movie forced her to not go on.

Probably the biggest takeaway from From Ground Zero is how the war in Gaza has affected all the people there, especially the children who might not fully understand what is going on, but try to enjoy their lives and have fun as best they can. There’s so much bravery shown in the film by these young children, who are dealing with much more than just food shortages and such.

As with most anthologies, From Ground Zero can be a bit uneven in terms of tone, although it still maintains an impressive consistency in the quality of the filmmaking between the shorts; the overall film is quite powerful and heartbreaking, and it absolutely must be seen. Can you imagine living like these courageous people? I certainly can’t, and no one can come out of this movie without realizing how this endless war needs to end for the sake of everyone.

Rating: 8/10

From Ground Zero will be released in many theaters across the country on January 3, 2025. You can find the full list of theaters on the official web site.