Samouni Road

A Palestinian girl, Amal, is considered dead by her relatives under the concrete rubble of a house. The Israeli Air Force bombed the Gaza Strip during its operation “Cast Lead” in 2008/2009 killing 29 civilians. SAMOUNI ROAD re-tells the story of a family trauma. Stefano Savona uses various types of images illustrating this: the memories of the agonized residents as flickering, deeply disturbing scratchboard-animations; the (reconstructed) surveillance images of a military attack filmed by drones, coming close to the aesthetics of video games; and inbetween, the clear-cut pictures of Savonas’ hand- held camera, visiting a family in ruins, today a bunch of suvivors.As a hotspot of political upheaval, the Gaza Strip is no unknown place for social reports. Savona digs deeper (like in his thoughtful documentary TAHRIR LIBERATION SQUARE), scrapes out of the darkness of memories those thin lines that finally make up this story. It does not suggest there is any reason for optimism. Significantly, the crown witness of the events is a little girl who has lost her memories. She, who has a splinter of shell in her head, becomes a symbol of a state inbetween: no roots to refer to and a shady future ahead. Seldomly has the fate of the Palestinians been drafted more accurately than here. (Gunnar Landsgesell)