One more jump
PerSo Cinema Italiano

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

In the film I want to focus on the different and opposite perspectives existing between Jehad in Gaza and Abdallah in Italy; their destinies are closely knit and despite the distance, their two parallel ‘worlds’ and stories reflect one into the other like in a mirror.
Jehad and the other guys in Gaza dream to have the right opportunity to get out of the Strip and become free men; they are physically very well trained but they are not prepared at all for the big jump to another life outside Gaza. They don’t know anything and they haven’t ever experienced anything outside the 42 kilometres of the Strip.
Abdallah already jumped to the “promised land” and today he knows that living in Europe brings with it its own heavy cost; he has crashed against the reality of being a refugee in a foreign country and he feels he has lost all that mattered: his family, teammates, culture and ultimately his sense of belonging.

The stories of Jehad and Abdallah represent definitely the drama of a generation of youths and of an entire population, deprived of their country and which has its own existence at stake. Palestinians and in particular Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, are forced to live as “strangers” in their own land. Many of them dream to leave the Strip and build a different future, even if they know that once outside, they won’t be able to ever go back, but their condition of “strangers in their homeland”, condemn them to remain strangers wherever they go.

With this film and through the stories of Jehad and Abdallah I would like to raise some questions about the meaning of “freedom”, for a people who was born and has grown in a prison, as it is the Gaza Strip.
I would like to use parkour as a visual metaphor of the situation these guys live in. Parkour is the sport and art of overcoming any kind of obstacles by running, jumping or using acrobatic moves and there is a close symbolic connection between parkour and the reality that people face every day in the Gaza Strip; this discipline represents a cruel and ironic allegory of how life is in the Strip.

In Gaza, obstacles and barriers are everywhere, and overcoming obstacles is part of the daily life for the young guys of the Strip since they were born. They are the fourth generation of Palestinians who have grown up trapped in a land devastated by an endless war and the Israeli occupation; they bring within themselves the hopes and frustrations of all who came before them. For these guys, challenging the danger with higher and higher jumps every day, represents their way to get back the land they have been stolen from, get back the freedom they never had and keep the hope for a different and better future.
Everyday these guys engage themselves in dangerous stunts, challenging in a symbolic way, the barriers of the reality they were born in. They can insist, fail, try again or achieve a perfect jump, yet the wall that separates them from the rest of the world will always be there, insurmountable. When they fly suspended in the air, thanks to the mastery of their body movements, reality disappears and, even if for few moments, they can feel free.

It’s not my intention to make a “political” film, yet the war and the Israeli siege of Gaza permeate to such a degree the whole life of the Palestinians of the Strip and of those living abroad, that these elements will be constantly present. I want those elements to become part of the film always through the stories of the protagonists.
The war will be clearly shown through the images of the places where the guys in Gaza live and train: the riddled houses, the destroyed or shabby buildings, the posters of Hamas martyrs all over the streets, the wall fencing the Strip and separating it from the rest of the world.

The situation of tension and threat will be present also through the sound of the Israeli’s drones and military jets which continuously cross the sky of Gaza and through the violence that Israeli soldiers use during the protests which take place every Friday along the border. Through all those elements I would like to convey the tragedy of the suffocating siege and of the erratic and ubiquitous war experienced by the Palestinian people every day since decades.

FESTIVAL & AWARDS

– Winner of the Award “Étoiles de la Scam” at 40º Prix Scam 2021 (2021 – France)
– Winner of the Award “Special Mention” at 22º Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts (16-22 June 2021 – Egypt)
– Selected at 23º One World Human Right Film Festival (10-28 May 2021 – Czech Republic)
– Winner of the Award “Honorable Mention” at 10º International Filmmaker Festival of New York (21-24 May 2021 – US)
– Selected at 6º Ulju Mountain Film Festival (02-11 April 2021 – South Korea)
– Selected at 16º Panorama Cinémas Maghreb et du Moyen-Orient (23 March -11 April 2021 – France)
– Selected at 7º Budapest International Documentary Film Festival (01-10 March 2021 – Hungary)
– Selected at 14º Other Israel Film Festival (03-10 December 2020 – US)
– Winner of the 3 Awards ”Prix des Jeunes de la Méditerranée”, ”Prix Première Oeuvre” and ”Prix à la diffusion 2M (Maroc)” at 24º PriMed – International Festival of Mediterranean Documentary & Reportage (28 November – 05 December 2020 – France)
– Selected at 3º London Palestine Film Festival (13-26 November 2020 – UK)
– Winner of the award “PRIX EUROPA Best European TV Documentary of the Year 2020” at 34º Prix Europa (18-27 October 2020 – Germany)
– Selected at 15º DocsMX (08-25 October 2020 – Mexico)
– Selected at 7º FFDUL – Film Festival Diritti Umani Lugano (14-18 October 2020 – Switzerland)
– Selected at 23º Immagimondo (19 September – 03 October 2020 – Italy)
– Selected at 38º Festival Annecy Cinéma Italien (21-27 September 2020 – France)
– Winner of the award “Special Mention” at 14º SalinaDocFest (18-26 September 2020 – Italy)
– Winner of the award “Prize of the Russian Guild of Film Critics” at 16º Kazan International Film Festival (04-09 September 2020 – Russia)
– Winner of the award “Cinema AMoRe” at 68º Trento Film Festival (27 August – 02 September 2020 – Italy)
– Selected at at 16º Kino Otok (26-30 August 2020 – Slovenia)
– Selected at 2º Cheltenham International Film Festival (08-14 June 2020 – UK)
– Selected at 51º Visions du Réel (17 April – 02 May 2020 – Switzerland)
– Selected for a Special Event at 60º Festival dei Popoli (02-09 November 2019 – Italy)
– Selected at 17º Alice Nella Città, parallel section of the Rome Film Fest (17-27 October 2019 – Italy)