Filmmaking in Gaza
Gaza Cinema Academy launches at Venice Film Festival
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- Palestinian filmmakers Ezzaldeen Shalh and Mai Masri launch the Gaza Cinema Academy at Venice, offering film training to a new generation of Gazans.
Palestinian filmmakers Ezzaldeen Shalh and Mai Masri officially launched the Gaza Cinema Academy at the Venice Film Festival on Monday, a new initiative to build a lasting space for film education, training and production in Gaza as the territory's humanitarian crisis continues to dominate world news.
Shalh, a Gaza-based director whose films include The Dry Spring, The Other World and Love and Bread, also runs the Gaza International Women's Film Festival.
"In Gaza, cinema is not merely an art form; it is a means of preserving memory, reclaiming our right to shape our own image, and giving a new generation the tools to tell its own story," he said.
The launch included a short film showing Shalh teaching a class of aspiring female filmmakers about their hopes of telling their stories on screen.
Support from the film world
Several well-known names in Arab cinema have backed the project, including director Annemarie Jacir, who directed Palestine 36, and actors Hiam Abbass and Saleh Bakri.
Also supporting the Academy are Egyptian comedian and filmmaker Ramy Youssef; Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, who is at Venice this year as a jury member for her film The Voice of Hind Rajab; Italian producer Graziella Bildesheim; and Alaa Karkouti of the Cairo-based company Mad Solutions.
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Building on existing work
The Academy builds on work that started in 2024 with the Gaza Filmmaking Diploma, a nine-month training program. Its first class of 25 young Palestinian women began in March 2026.
The Academy is now also developing a filmmaking degree accredited by Al-Quds Open University, the main Palestinian institute of higher education, to create a lasting academic path for film study in Gaza.
Masri, known for her 2015 film 3000 Nights, which premiered in Toronto and screened at festivals around the world, said the project is about more than filmmaking.
"Supporting a new generation of filmmakers in Gaza means giving them a space to express their reality, memory and dreams," she said. "We believe that creativity and cinema can empower, preserve human memory, and build bridges that transcend borders."
