screened at this year\u2019s Cannes Film Festival, where it picked up the Directors\u2019 Prize in \u201cUn Certain Regard.\u201d It opens with images of bombing raids on Gaza, a trailer for what is supposed to be the first action film shot in Gaza, followed by a voiceover of Donald Trump giving his speech on February 5, 2025, in which he expresses his surreal plan to empty the Gaza Strip of its inhabitants and turn it into a \u201cRiviera.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe collision between all these images plunges us both into a confusion between fiction and reality \u2014 which is the question that arises throughout the film \u2014 and the uninterrupted fury of daily life in Gaza. When we hear about Gaza, a whole imaginary emerges, carrying with it clich\u00e9s, preconceptions and ideologies, no matter how little we know about life in the Palestinian enclave.<\/span><\/p>\nThis phantasmagoria is accompanied by a flood of violent television and social media images, of destruction, war, bombardments, wounded families and children, refugees, food aid nowhere to be found \u2014 a media profusion that has increased tenfold in the almost two years of a total war to annihilate everything that is alive in Gaza. We are hyper aware of this reality, despite the fact that Israel forbids any presence of international journalists in Gaza, while it surgically targets Palestinian journalists reporting for Al Jazeera and other outlets such as the Guardian, Reuters and AFP, outlets that are hungry for the latest news and images, in spite of Israel\u2019s embargo.<\/span><\/p>\nThis is not what <\/span>Once Upon a Time in Gaza<\/span><\/i> shows us.<\/span><\/p>\n