WriDirs: Carol Mansour, Muna Khalidi | Doc 89′
Filmmakers Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi are close friends of the Abu Sittan family and explore from an intensely personal angle the life and work of Palestinian doctor Ghassan Abu Sittah who works tirelessly to save lives in his native Gaza.
Hassan is actually based in London where he runs a Harley Street clinic specialising in complex lip surgery. But when duty calls he jumps on a plane to the region and provides emergency support, just as he has done during five conflicts involving Israel, as well as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
An opening segment makes uses of mobile phone footage and storyboarded images to introduce the well known surgeon who is passionately driven in a humanitarian cause to treat survivors of airstrikes and bombs blasts during the recent conflict in Gaza that has touched so many lives.
There are interviews with his mother and wife Dima who describe their fears of living with a close loved one whose life puts him in danger every single day. The film them scrolls backwards and forwards describing his childhood and education and his determination to become a doctor.
Avoiding sensationalism the directors follow Ghassan’s emergency surgery in the only single functioning hospital in the war zone where he is forced to choose which victims are worth saving. He remembers one night performing six amputations involving children. The injuries are brutal and indiscriminate so he operates a tough triage system. Sometimes only limbs are discovered in the rubble. There is a cemetery dedicated to children’s appendages.
In scenes of utter devastation we witness bomb sites strewn with tee-shirts and plastic shoes that have literally melted in the heat of the blasts. Gruelling, almost unwatchable scenes in the aftermath to an incursion bear witness to the broken bodies and blood-soaked floors. No family is left untouched by the ghastly events.
Most recently he has been lobbying in the UK parliament for end to the genocide, citing Israel’s purported use of white phosphorus in attacks on children and babies. Together with his solicitor he is mounting a war crimes case. And it’s here that the documentary claims the Israelis are trying to discredit his efforts. @MeredithTaylor
CAIRO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024