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Screening will start at 12:00 Noon US EST; 7:00 PM Palestine Time.
88 minutes, 2021, English with English subtitles where needed. The film screening will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Chiara Avesani.
SYNOPSIS:
Riccardo, an Italian final-year medical student, is going on Erasmus. The destination: Gaza, a war zone. He wants to become a war surgeon and is writing his thesis on explosive bullet wounds. Entering Gaza is not easy. He needs permission from three different authorities: the Israeli army, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. And upon arrival, the pressure mounts: his experience will determine the success of the exchange programme. The imminence of war doesn’t help and he starts suffering panic attacks. And when war is rekindled, Riccardo has to make many difficult choices. In crossing the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, he also crossed the boundary between adolescence and adulthood.
Chiara Avesani
About the Filmmakers
Chiara Avesani is a journalist. For many years, she has worked for RAI in investigative programs such as Agorà or Report. As a freelance, she has collaborated with Al Jazeera covering stories on the migrant exodus. She participated in Compass, a foreign policy program, and America Tonight, a showcase for thought-provoking reports.
She also worked as a correspondent for Sky News from Mosul. In 2016, Chiara teamed with Delbò for the project Frontline of peace, an ongoing web documentary series on the Iraqi civil society efforts to rebuild their country. Ghadeer is the first story of the project.
Matteo Dello
Matteo Delbò is a filmmaker. After graduating from the National Film School in Rome, he won the “David di Donatello” Award for best short film. For a long time he did live broadcasts for the first Italian digital newspaper il Corriere della Sera, following natural catastrophes, demonstrations and migrant rescue operations for the 2013 operation “Mare Nostrum”. Delbò has also worked for Al Jazeera in the program Witness and for Sky News from Mosul. There he teamed with Avesani and together they directed Ghadeer. Recently, he was DOP in One More Jump. Delbò now works for RAI.
Directors Statement
Since the very first time I heard about Riccardo, I found his story incredibly captivating: he is the first Western exchange student in Gaza.
He enrolls in Erasmus: the European study abroad programme that is now expanding its reach beyond EU borders to Israel, the West Bank and, for the first time, Gaza.
Riccardo has the typical student abroad experience, living daily life in Gaza, moving beyond the image that is traditionally shown in the media which tends to focus on the spectacle of the conflict.
Riccardo
Riccardo meets other students his age and enjoys hanging out with them. Like most of his peers, he is still trying to figure out what career to take on in the future. From this point of view, Riccardo’s story has all the elements of any other universal educational story of a young man as he navigates the path towards adulthood.
Riccardo also represents a bridge to bring Western audience closer to everyday life in Gaza and empathize. Usually foreigners enter Gaza either to teach or to bring aid: Riccardo is the first Western student going to Gaza merely to learn. In this sense, we believe our film overthrows a huge amount of stereotypes.
Moreover, the friendships that Riccardo establishes in Gaza draw out various cultural aspects that generate ironic and affectionate conversations.
This film gives us the chance to show young people in Gaza who are full of life and positivity despite the hardships caused by closed borders and war. Furthermore, thanks to Riccardo we are granted access to places in Gaza rarely shown by the media such as the Islamic University or the Faculty of Medicine. We will also be welcomed into the heart of Adam’s family, part of Gaza’s bourgeoisie, a private household inaccessible to cameras.
Aerial View of Gaza
Together with this young man –close to graduating– we will try to narrate an educational journey in order to highlight how the curiosity of the unknown and exchange of knowledge are the only keys left to tear down walls, survive violence and, above all, remain human.