From Ground Zero / A-Mach à Neonaidh
Dir: various, 2024 Gaza Palestine, 1hr 22min, Language: Arabic with English subtitles, BBFC:12A
From Ground Zero is a compelling project that brings together 22 short films created by talented filmmakers from Gaza. Launched by Rashid Masharawi, a renowned Palestinian filmmaker, the initiative was born against the backdrop of conflictand aims to provide a platform for young artists to express themselves through their craft. The project captures the diverse experiences of life in the Palestinian enclave. Using a mix of genres including fiction, documentary, docu-fiction, animation and experimental cinema, From Ground Zero presents a rich diversity of stories that reflect the sorrow, joy and hope inherent in Gazan life. Despite the harsh filming conditions, Gaza's vibrant artistic scene shines through this collection, offering an intimate and powerful portrait of daily life and the enduring spirit of its people.
Winner of Cinema for Peace Award 2025
Boundary Layers / Sreathan Crìche
Dir: Amanda Thompson, UK, 16min
Boundary Layers (16 minutes) is a dual-screen film work and spoken-word essay about nature’s reclamation of the former steelworks at Ravenscraig, Motherwell, closed by Thatcher's government in the 1980s. Let’s start with the mosses, the bryophytes. They’re often the first colonist species to arrive, and it’s thought these mosses are not dissimilar to the first plants that came out of the water onto land, more than four hundred million years ago. Without roots, tiny hairs anchor them to the surfaces of rocks, cement, trees, logs, bricks, anything that they can find, and they pull their nutrition from the atmosphere around them. ’S e obair film sgrìn-dùbailte agus aiste labhairteach a th’ ann an Sreathan Crìche. Tha am film seo mun ath-bhuannachadh le nàdar aig an seann muillin-stàillin Ravenscraig, Tobar na Màthar a chaidh a dhùnadh le riaghaltas Thatcher sna 1990an. Nach tòisich sinn a’ coimhead air na còinneachan, na bryophytes. Glè thric, ‘s iadsan a’ chiad lus-stèadheachail a bhios a’ ruighinn. Thathar den bheachd gu bheil na còinneachan seo coltach ris an fheadhainn a thàinig air tìr bho chionn còrr is 400millean bliadhna. Às aonais freumhan, bidh ribeagan an acrachadh air uachdar chlachan, sameant, craobhan, logichean, brèigean - dad sam bith as urrainn dhaibh a lorg.
The work was part of A Fragile Correspondence, Scotland’s collateral exhibition for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023
