Gaza, dir: Gary Keane & Andrew McConnell

Tommy Hodgson — 2020-01-09T21:24:59Z

Gaza never falters in its intimate portrayal of humans whose lives have been profoundly affected by political decisions made without their consent or interests at heart. The footage is unmanufactured; it is not a passive news report about the body count of an active war zone but a real character study of personal and societal perseverance through the most devastating circumstances. It is both destruction and happiness; pain and dancing; and only political insofar as it spells out that sympathy is not enough consolation for an idea of a free and just Gaza.

After the film screening at Soho's Curzon, the co-director Andrew McConnell spoke of how he was welcomed overwhelmingly into the local community; approaching Gaza as an outsider actually created the impetus for the most intimate and heart-wrenching moments of the film. In accessing these stories, building relationships and foundations, the directors were able to breach the only realistic difference between Gaza as a ‘big open air prison' and an actual prison. Lack of drinkable water, electricity shortages and barriers to travel render this obviously stunning and culturally rich land a zone of restrictions. It is thus sadly relevant that the directors use imagery of the sea, which is culturally important to the Gazan psyche and way of life but ultimately serves as a false symbol of freedom and escape. This gives the undeniably beautiful shots of Gazans socialising by the beach, silhouetted against the backdrop of sunsets over a long flat sea, a bittersweet feeling.

[1]

Everything in Gaza is told through the eyes of its subjects; fishermen, taxi drivers, tailors and lifeguards create the actual scope of Gazan life, the directors are just a conduit. It is apparent, and indeed painfully so, that Gazans are trying to forge their own expression out of a dire situation, evident through profiles of a disabled Palestinian rapper and a family of aspiring models creating their own catwalk at home. For such dreams to flourish even in a limited sense, in a land under massive blockade and siege, truly speaks to the spirit that the directors gleaned in their exploration of Gaza. This holds even more weight given that the directors' original film idea was just to document the surprisingly popular pastime of surfing in Gaza. Both the original niche approach and the broader final project are powerful in that they deflate the conflict narrative surrounding merely the mention of the word ‘Gaza'.

The biggest revelation of the film, an underlying gut punch lurking throughout, comes as many Gazans, often young unemployed men, approach the Israeli border fence – a symbol of oppression and denial of a future. The harrowing scenes depict the futility of Gazans throwing rocks up against a much more powerful and ruthless enemy, but doing so out of frustration and lack of opportunities; as an outlet not as a solution. Seeing sieges in real time, concerning people and families the film has already fleshed out, brings home the devastation and misery of the cycle of conflict on the ground in this region. It is a reminder of the reality of Gazans, that the humour, the singing and the brotherhood of its people happen not just in spite of the terror and violence but because of it; this is the crux of solidarity and resistance.

[1] all photos from gazadocumentary.com

Soviet Hippies, directed by Terje Toomistu - UK Premiere

Tommy Hodgson — 2019-11-14T14:09:33Z

Soviet Hippies, director Terje Toomistu's second creation, is a thoughtful, insightful piece which effortlessly draws you into a counter-cultural pocket of resistance, transporting you to a time of contrasting repression and upheaval. Through the use of archival footage - crisp, clear and naked material - this film documents not just the developments of a hippie subculture in the Soviet Union during the 1960s and 70s, but the mood surrounding the ongoing passive resistance against the state. From its inception, the film produces a pang of nostalgia - even for a time and place you have no stake in - through the use of grainy and intimate footage, and splashes of dated, psychedelic animations to ensure you step lively into the time warp before you.

The narrative of the film follows a loose thread of hazy tales, heady beliefs, mystic societies and psychedelic exploration. The viewer is invited to examine the hippie warriors of yesteryear in their shaggy prime - optimistic and adamant – then, directly alongside, as starkly aged relics still grasping a core belief system, just as righteous if a bit weathered. The archival footage is incredible and really makes the film, which is all the more remarkable as Toomistu only stumbled upon the footage – a box of Super 8mm film rolls - during her research, giving the project a generous artistic boost by way of this never before seen hippie treasure trove. Considering that the history of the hippie movement in the USSR was previously widely unknown, partly due to Soviet archives which were closed until fairly recently, this was a feat – the director worked from scratch and interviewed all the participants anew, and this hard work is reflected through the consistent tone of the movie. In the Q&A after the premiere, Toomistu articulated that the original plan was to focus primarily on a reunion of old hippies in the present day. But without the real, raw historic material, the movie surely would not have been as impactful or clear in its narrative.

Throughout the documentary, the contrast between the uniformity of Soviet culture and the hippies' pursuit of individualistic rebellion is blunt; an obvious juxtaposition which means that sprinkling the film with snapshots of regular Soviet life as way of illustration merely underlines the point. But the bigger takeaway from the film is that the repressive aspects of any society harbours dissent, and the example of Soviet hippies, which took huge inspiration from their Western and more well-known counterparts, followed a loose pattern of international turmoil and exploration of new ideas in the post-war era. And based on the film's archival interviews with older or more conservative members of the Soviet public, reaction to these long- haired ‘modern forest folk' would have elicited the same reactionary sentiments in Los Angeles or London (‘get a haircut!').

One of the most interesting aspects of the film was the network that Soviet hippies established, pre-mass communication, simply using notebooks and word of mouth. Ironically named ‘the system', its creation allowed the freedom of movement of like-minded outsiders from across the Soviet states to find each other and know where to stay in each city, outside of KGB detection. It speaks to the wonderfully subversive nature of these Soviet hippies, and of humans in difficult situations more widely. That feeling of not being alone should not be underestimated, in any cultural endeavours. As one of the many hippies interviewed in the film put it, ‘deviance was an act of power'. One suspects Toomistu, whose academic research includes transgender women in Indonesia, meant her documentary as a celebration of diversity of thought and experimentation – and ‘the system' is a good illustration of this.

The Soviet hippie movement itself was forced underground - to the fringes of an already-hostile society or even externally - when a public meeting was shut down by the authorities on 1st June 1971. Though the annual meeting of hippies still takes place on the same date every year in Moscow, the film truly emphasises how, though traces remain, this movement really existed in not just a different time but a separate sociopolitical space. The challenges and backlash of the counterculture years, viewed through the prism of this subculture but widely applicable, are ultimately captured here through music, visuals, deeply-held opinions and emotion – building up to a worldly but raw experience, courtesy of a thorough, research-minded director. The night, hosted by Dash Arts and featuring an extensive Q&A, was even followed by a mystic ritual courtesy of one of the film's stars Vladimir Wiedemann, just to try to keep some essence of the Soviet hippies alive. Overall, the film succeeds in giving a little burst of recognition and life to a movement which, in the words of Toomistu, had ‘no centre, no edges'.

More info on the film's website!

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Gaza, dir: Gary Keane & Andrew McConnell

Soviet Hippies, directed by Terje Toomistu - UK Premiere