Who Is Still Alive, from Swiss director Nicolas Wadimoff (The Apollo of Gaza, Operation Libertad, Aisheen, The Golden Gloves of Akka), world premieres on Sept. 3 in the Venice Days program (Giornate Degli Autori), the independent section within the Venice Film Festival promoted by the Italian filmmaker associations ANAC and 100autori. But anticipation has already been building, given its topicality. After all, it features nine Palestinian refugees from Gaza sharing their stories.
“A map of Gaza, its cities, camps, and neighborhoods. White paint on a black floor. In these roughly drawn outlines, nine refugees who were able to escape hell tell their stories,” reads a synopsis. “Their previous lives, their buried dreams, the danger, the rubble, the loss of their dear ones. Oppressed, hindered existences, but not yet reduced to ashes, not yet totally plunged into oblivion and darkness. By sharing their stories, the protagonists of Who Is Still Alive attempt to reconnect with themselves, to stop being ghosts. And, perhaps, come back to life.”
Wadimoff, in a director’s statement, highlights: “What the survivors of Gaza have endured cannot be told with words alone. Gestures, breaths, or silences can be more telling, sometimes.”
And he offers: “Whatever word we use for this campaign of systematic destruction and erasure, our common framework for understanding the world seems to have become ineffective in the face of this unspeakable thing, which must not, however, remain unheard and unseen.”
Nicolas Wadimoff
Courtesy of Cinematheque Suisse/Mathilda Olmi
Wadimoff also emphasizes a hope to present the film “beyond affiliations and political opinions,” emphasizing: “The idea here is to give visibility to the stories of a people too often dehumanized, reduced to numbers. And to take the time to listen, watch, feel the battered bodies and the wounded souls.”
The director even describes the film as “a bridge between the intimate and collective experience of a devastated people and the spectators, who will become witnesses. A motion to think the unthinkable together.”
THR can present two exclusive clips from Who Is Still Alive.
The first clip shows two men sharing some of their experiences. One of them talks about missiles and his family, including his sister’s fears – before tears start flowing.
The second man recalls a visit to a market in Cairo where he wanted to buy a painting – before making a painful realization.
In a second exclusive clip, a woman talks about a harrowing young death. And then, a man shares what a difference a year makes – and addresses how his body may be elsewhere now, but his spirit is still in Gaza.