When war tears your country apart, what are you to do but surf?
How does one really deal with grief, sadness and stress? Some bottle themselves in, becoming shells of their former selves. Others turn violent, funneling their frustrations into the only tactile sensation that makes sense to them. More still attempt to placate the madness occurring around them by finding a hobby, one that allows them to take their minds off of their plights and dive deep into a world of wonder. And for a few young men and women in the tumultuous Gaza Strip, that approach comes in the form of surfing their hearts out.
Focusing on the story of two individuals, “Gaza Surf Club” tells the story of 23-year-old Ibrahim Arafat and 15-year-old Sabah Abu Ghanem. The young man dreams of escaping war-torn Palestine to work amongst the surfers in surfing’s homeland, Hawaii. But as we make our nonfiction filmic journey, we learn that family obligations and bureaucratic restrictions hinder the promising young man’s reveries of moving to the shimmer waters of the Aloha State.
But while Arafat eventually does leave Palestine for the sandy shores of Hawaii after his visa is approved, it is Sabah Abu Ghanem that faces stronger resistance in her fight for independence. Having tasted the freedom of the waves from an early age, Ghanem is forever tinged with the desire to break free. But with Hamas’ strict fundamentalist laws for women (which forces the young woman to wear a hijab and never touch the waters), the once proud surfer girl is left to feel powerless under the hands of the harshly undemocratic governments in Gaza.
The directing duo of Philip Gnadt and Mickey Yamine have done an outstanding job painting a vivid picture of the asphyxiating situations that young people feel in war-torn countries. Stuck between the brutally dehumanizing Israeli forces and the conservatively oppressively Hamas, these surfers have somehow found an escape from it all on the beaches of the Mediterranean. But what sets this film apart is its different focalization. While other traditional documentaries like “Cries for Syria” and “White Helmets” emphasize the obvious tragedies of missing family members, tyrannical regimes and the destruction of once proud cities and nations, “Gaza Surf Club” takes a different approach to unpacking the difficulties of life in a tumultuous area of the Middle East.
Although the documentary continues to shine a light on the issues of the Palestine-Israel conflict, it seldom focalizes it as the driving narrative. Sure, we take moments to reflect on the repressive, war-ravaged Gaza Strip, but we rarely delve into the politics of it all. Instead, the political gridlock and unfortunate social circumstances of the Palestinian people provide but a context to the individualized stories of Ghanem and Arafat, two similar yet starkly different youths who dream of a different life that is not marred by bombs, lies and hunger. By concentrating on the uplifting nature of their escape from chaos through surfing, directors Gnadt and Yamine do excellent work showcasing that humanism and fun exists even in the most unlikely of places.
The film’s attentiveness to characterization makes the picture to be a touchingly poignant look at the mind’s necessity to deal with hardship in any way possible. For even when pseudo-authorities are forcing one to wear a hijab or bombs are falling over the seas, one cannot ignore the heart’s desire to escape–or in the case of these young folks, to surf.
Check out “Gaza Surf Club” exclusively on Sundance Now March 30
