| New Docs Japan |
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Ghada: Songs of Palestine
(“Ghada: Paresuchina no uta”)
JAPAN, PALESTINE / 2005 / Arabic, English / Color / Video / 106 min / Subtitled in Japanese and English
Director, Photography: Furui Mizue
Editing: Yasuoka Takaharu, Tsujii Kiyoshi
Producers: Yasuoka Takaharu, Nonaka Akihiro
Production Companies: Yasuoka Films, Asia Press International
World Sales: Bio-Tide & Associates
Ghada was born and raised in a Gaza refugee camp. The Japanese director met her in a Palestine under siege and continued to film her for twelve years. She marries and starts a family, but then we see Ghada as she decides to live an emancipated life as an Arab woman, and later begins to collect and record stories about her homeland and songs by elderly Palestinian women. Underscoring Ghada’s way of life is Director Furui’s own career: In a world where journalists tend to cover only tragedies, she chooses to document the richness of women’s everyday lives.
[Director’s Statement] I’ve portrayed the women of Palestine, who until now were relegated to a background presence, as the central figures of Ghada. Refusing to allow the Israeli occupation to defeat her, Ghada lives her life with determination as a Palestinian refugee—from wedding engagement to marriage to childrearing, as a woman and mother. I hope this film will be seen by as many people as possible, by those who know Palestine and those who don’t.
Furui Mizue
A photojournalist, born in 1948 in Shimane. She first visited the occupied Palestinian territories in 1988, and has covered the intifada (resistance by Palestinians). Living with the Palestinian people, she has focused her stories on women and children. Her journalistic work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Uganda, Indonesia’s Aceh territory, and Afganistan has appeared in newspapers, in magazines, and on TV. Furui was awarded the Days Japan Special Jury Prize in 2005. Her publications include Women in the Rubble (Iwanami Shoten). |