Screening of the Documentary: “The Phoenix of Gaza"

This unique film tells a deeply personal story — a love letter from its author, Yousef Alhelou, to his hometown, Gaza. After a decade away — since 2013, when he received a scholarship at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford — Yousef decided to return to Gaza to reconnect with the people and places of his childhood. His aim was to make a documentary that would reveal Gaza’s hidden beauty, joy and resilience. He filmed extensively: historic buildings, leisure spaces, beach life, olive groves and fruit orchards, museums, mosques, churches, restaurants, malls, markets, graduation ceremonies and weddings, capturing the city’s cultural heritage and rare aerial footage. He could never have imagined that the images shot during those two months would become some of the last visual records of Gaza’s cultural, social and recreational life before its total destruction by Israel, which began on 8 October 2023. What was meant to be a film about life turned into an elegy for a city and its people. This remarkable documentary has already won 17 international awards for Best Documentary and Best Director.