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About the Film
This film highlights the first intifada (uprising) as an important phase of the Palestinians’ struggle against the occupation. It focuses on the setbacks and victories of the people of Dheisheh refugee camp who confronted the occupier's daily practices of abuse, humiliation and violence.
The refugees in the camp popularly rejected the restrictions, such as curfews, confiscation of freedoms and racist colonial practice. This film documents the wider backdrop of resistance against which the main characters tell their personal stories about what happened behind a fence, built by the occupier to control the population, so high that it separated them from the surroundings and almost blocked the sun.
This film features young people (men and women) in the camp during the Intifada. They explain how their belief in liberation and rejection of the miserable reality has enabled them to continue to develop mechanisms to dismantle the walls of occupation.
About the Film Director Tamara Abu Laban
Tamara Abu Laban was born in Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. Even though living in a camp was a hard experience, it has been a very rich cultural environment that inspired her creativity and wish to make films in order to tell people’s stories.
She studied media in Egypt and got her MA in the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in producing and cinematography. She has produced and directed many short films, that made her participate in Dubai film festival. She is the initiator of the project « Women Make A Change », which by using films and media aim to empower women. Her involvement in such activities brought her awards such as Synergos award for entrepreneurs and an award from the EU for her work in humanitarian issues especially for the movie she directed with Musicians without borders. She has also worked for TV channels, Al-Jazeera or Al-Arabi.
Director Statement
It is not easy to project yourself, although you know a lot about it. This film documents the experiences of people I lived with, knew their stories and their victories that have never been documented before.
Even if the present is not better than the past but we are still looking for sunlight amongst the ugly shadows of apartheid.