Hver gang vi rantes
Den gode samtalen. Om musikken. Om filmen. Om det som skjer på en scene. Om det som er harry. Om det stygge, og det pene. Om kultur og refleksjon. En podcast av og med Ida Madsen Hestman.
Hver gang vi rantes produseres av Kulturplattformen TBA - To Be Announced / TBATBA.NO. Introjingle av Johnny Engdal Silseth.
Hver gang vi rantes
Den palestinske regissøren Mohamed Jabaly om kampen for et norsk arbeidsvisum, hjembyen Gaza, og sin siste film, «Livet er vakkert»
Den palestinske regissøren Mohamed Jabaly er aktuell med sin andre kinodokumentar. Der retter han kameraet mot seg selv.
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Podcasten Hver gang vi rantes er utgitt av Kulturplattformen TBA.
I got a call from the police. Fuck, this is a final decision. Yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 2:Basically, you don't have any rights.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The next step would be to leave Schengen as soon as possible.
Speaker 1:I have no choice and I don't know where to go. Mama, it's been seven years since the last time I thought about it. I'm gonna fight it.
Speaker 3:When I meet the current Palestinian director, mohammed Jabali from Gaza today. He's a student at the art school in Oslo, but his way here has not been easy. He got a breakthrough as a director Oslo, men hans vei hit har ikke vært lett. Han fikk et gjennombrudd som regissør med dokumentarfilmen Ambulance, som han viste på den prestigetunge filmfestivalen IDFA I Amsterdam, men også her I Norge. I 2017 var året da jeg selv møtte ham under Tromsø Internasjonale Filmfestival for første gang, da jeg hadde en Q&A with the young director who promoted his film, and it was also while he was in Tromsø, gaza's friendship city, during a month's stay in 2014, that the border crossing from Egypt to Gaza was closed.
Speaker 3:Mohammed Jabali could not return home, and this is where his current film Life is Beautiful begins. It's a film that highlights the last ten years' challenges in Gaza and for him himself here in Norway, as a stateless man in a meeting with the Norwegian bureaucracy's bigger mullet and in spite of great help from resource-rich people around him I eit møte med det norske byråkratiets digre mølle Og til tross for stor hjelp fra ressurssterke folk rundt seg. Så har kampen vært hard og lang, ikkje bare for å få lov til å jobbe I Norge som eneste alternativ uten eit hjem å reise tilbake til. Men utlendingdirektoratet har også tvilt på Jabali's faktis as a film maker. You listen to Hver gang vi rantes with me, ida Madsen-Hestman.
Speaker 2:Now I'm sitting here with Mohamed Jabali, the singer of.
Speaker 1:Life is beautiful. Life is beautiful Not so sweet, because in Norwegian you can say life is wonderful, which means that life is sweet, but it's more like beautiful.
Speaker 1:I'm here at Kunsthøyskolen where Mohamed, you are studying yeah, it's like my first I mean second semester, so it's like first year here in the fine art department, which is something really. It's important for me to also keep learning about other people lives, which gives me a different dimension, or where I am in the world. So it's an inspiring and inspirational method that I use, usually to keep going, also by seeing other people, how they practice and how observe, like I love observing people because you have made this great film.
Speaker 2:In that film you kind of tell your story and why you actually you needed to also apply for a student visa. You had to to to go here to study, to actually get the visa, didn't you?
Speaker 1:That was like, yeah, I mean, when I returned to Norway in 2017, it was based or return on a student visa and then I did the court case and I got my kind of right to work and stay in Norwayway and do whatever I want, based on the working permit.
Speaker 1:But I decided as is also you, uh, I decided, as you saw also in the film, like that I want to continue my study and I did and finished and now I'm work. I have like a working skills worker permit where I also continue working as a filmmaker and it's also given me the ability to develop myself, like being here also at KIO and continue working and touring with the film now, which I think is a great ability to mobilize more into the situation and what's happening down in my hometown of Gaza into the situation and what's happening down in my hometown of Gaza, because you are from Gaza and maybe you could like tell a bit about your story, because I got to know you from 10 years ago when you were here with the ambulance, and that was also after you were not permitted to go back.
Speaker 1:Was it changed after 10 years? No, it's a lot to change. I think it's also. I mean, basically, the film is a personal story that reflects my last years here in Norway and how I also faced my struggle of being fighting for my right to exist as a filmmaker, and also was my choice of not also seeking asylum and facing all this kind of bureaucratical process of being in a new country that also have a strong system not easy to fit in, but at the same time, I managed my way in and and how I built everything basically from below zero after I was invited to visit our twin city with Gaza Tromso for first time in 2014 and based also after the delegation from Norway came to Gaza in 2013.
Speaker 1:And that's the whole journey started from there when I got invited and then suddenly, after I arrived to Norway, the border was shut down again for over two years, and that made me choose Also not to choose, because I was just planning to stay for a month and then return, and all this changed and then, after this month, I started to think what's going to happen in my life. So, basically, I started actually rebuilding and building my network from below zero and building my network from below zero, not only the temperature, but also the reality that I faced at that time, and this film is a reflection of that time and also my childhood, my memories in Gaza and how I was shaped into the person who I am today.
Speaker 2:Because, yeah, I don't think many people knew that, the border from Like. Maybe more people know it now Because it's so much focus on Gaza, but yeah, the border from Egypt to Gaza. Maybe you can tell about that before.
Speaker 1:October. Maybe you can tell about that before October. Gaza has like two main borders from the land, like one through Israel which is impossible for Palestinians to cross unless you have a special permit, or if you're sick or plus plus or if you're an international worker. That's like you can work, you can pass through, otherwise it's not allowed, it's not possible to cross. And on the other side we have the egyptian border where we travel and kind of it's our gate to the world, because we, our international airport was destroyed during the second intifada and basically the sea closed, so we cannot travel through the sea and that's the only options we have is to travel through Egypt, where we fly from Cairo, and that border is always closed and due to the political situation in Egypt, it affects the working of the border and the political climate in the area. So that affects also our lives. So we cannot travel easily, we cannot move easily and it's controlled by a third party which we can't live or like. It's not possible.
Speaker 1:Of course you can, you can like, you can cross it, but still it's very complicated. We talk about the normal, not a war situation, we talk a normal situation. You still need a reason to travel if you go for a vacation or tourism, it, it's more likely you will not be able to cross this border, because it also says it has to be a priority travel, like, let's say, sickness, emergency, like, maybe student, will be exception, but other than that, it will be very difficult to go for a vacation unless you use the. You kind of pay a fee for the border so they can facilitate your crossing, so, which means also bribe, and that's like what's happening today, and these days is super complicated and it's sad that we reached this level level families paying tons of money to be able to save their life and that's the only way that they can leave gaza at this stage okay, so.
Speaker 2:So right now you're saying like some people actually managed to get out or families managed, like first place, like uh, it's now open.
Speaker 1:I think 300 people every day leaves, and that includes people who pay the money and people who are, let's say, injured, like injured people, and we talk about over 100,000 people probably got injured during this until now or I don't have the right number, but it's like it's five months of genocide.
Speaker 1:We talk about the result of over 30,000 people got killed and over likely around 100,000 people got injured, and this continues while we're talking, while we're speaking, while we're doing, and and this continue while we're talking, while speaking, while we're doing, we're trying, while we're trying to stop this. Like the killing machine is having to be stopped. Now it's like around 300 people every day more or less leave, and including the people who are paying this money to cross to rescue their life, and in the beginning it was these rescuing missions, like, for example, if Norway had a Norwegian citizen in Gaza, they would have managed to leave by now, but then Norway they didn't cover their trip, like in, let's say, in Ukrainian situation. They asked the people to pay the fee afterwards, after the flight tickets and the way. Maybe you hear these stories too, anyway, so this is like another topic, like and a long, I know. I mean, I'm sure there is uh like more time to talk about this and another stage.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, um, yeah, um, because, um you, for how long have you been in norway now?
Speaker 1:uh, since, or almost like. This year will be 10 year for me. Like I came in october 2014 and now it's 24 2024, so it's almost 10 years in a few months. Uh, so, in theory, it's nine and a half years now and it's like I never thought that I would stay all these years here, but it's just like a reality that I lived with and accepted, which is, you see, I'm trying to do things, trying to live, also live it in a way that it also makes me feel one from this society, even though I'm still the Palestinian, the Gathan and filmmaker who's trying to reflect on this.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, but do you remember like the first time you understood that, wow, I'm not gonna manage to get back, to get like when you were in norway the first time, do you remember?
Speaker 1:I mean that was clear from the beginning, beginning that the borders closed and it wasn't indefinitely, like you didn't know when it's going to be open, so and that from that moment it wasn't clear when I will return. So all my life been based on returning to Gaza and then when I managed, seven years later, also like it was a special moment because also I start building on maybe it could be option to be able to be in norway and to be able to also to be in gaza and build kind of two homes and kind of cross-country projects, like as any many filmmakers or like, let's say, you could be a norwegian living in germany and do cross-country projects and build your life on that. But it's in my case it's difficult because we don't have the capacity to travel easily or normally between, let's say, home and here. I saw your film yesterday and what do you think of the film?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I must say I must say it was very hard to watch, so, but because then you also see, like you've kind of filmed from the beginning, from when you came to Norway, and that's so many years ago. So first of all I think it's very, it's what's the word.
Speaker 1:That you have managed to film this much decision. From the beginning, they said like it was a decision to document everything, because I felt like that, like from today, I said, like I'm going to film everything because I didn't know what's going to happen, so I wanted to have it on camera so if anything happened I can get back to it or maybe just document it. So I did that along the way, from my phone, from my camera, from all the different mediums that I tried to manage to to document my life here. Because also, like I never, that's the turning point when a filmmaker decided, deciding to, or decided to flip the camera towards himself because he or became the center of the story or the, and that was like a choice too. Like that I flipped the camera toward myself because I never thought that will be, that I will ever do that in a way, but it's just like it's reality, forced reality, and that's what happened.
Speaker 2:Like when you live, unexpected reality, that's uh, so that's what happened and and and it's the quite opposite from your from your ambulance film like the, where you're sitting in in front of the ambulance and filming everything.
Speaker 1:Maybe you can talk about that too I mean ambulance was like also my personal experience, like during the 51 days of the Israeli attacks over Gaza in summer 2014. And, of course, that film still relevant for today, because I mean, when this war started on Gaza, my friend was joking to me and saying, like you remember the 51 days, like that, that you lived with us or you lived, undocumented, with the ambulance. Um, they said to me like it's almost like a one night that we live these days, because the amount of brutality and the way that how they bombed Gaza, it's totally, it's kind of also the weapons that they use it's, of course, developed weapons and like that it even sounded different and the impact and the destruction that brings is huge and more so. And it feels like this is like also been used as a testing field again. Because it's like this is also being used as a testing field again because this is like another kind of round of this genocide that we are living over, not now or like last October, or since October.
Speaker 1:It's been for the last 76 years, so there haven't been any breaks, six years, so it's haven't been any breaks. So, if you look historically on even the timeline and and the days, like it's been, it's never been a break. So it's been so much things happening and never stop. And this is what's going on today too. Like, I mean, are it's a continuation of the incubation and colonial power that is controlling people's lives. And this could be easily ended by the word, but the word feels has no power. I mean the whole world or the United Nations, who are trying to stop this. They've been saying just feels, like, trying to stop this. They've been saying just feels like, oh, let's stop this and we agree on a ceasefire, but then, like, as you see, like the us is using the veto against stopping killing.
Speaker 1:You know, when are we going? Like if, if, like I think there is people in gaza lost hope in humanity, I would say, or like, even if we have all, why do we study human right law? Why do we study human right like law? Or why do we have human rights like then, or it's written, if we don't apply it now, when are we going to apply it? And that's the problem is, we face a big struggle and we face a different like. I mean, we have actually no words left. I've been writing almost the last few days, writing, typing and then deleting it because I know it's like, okay, it's not gonna like.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've been posting, writing, sharing, doing what we can, demonstrating in the street and reflecting on the situation, trying're going to see this, and the nightmare is not. Now it's the day when all this is stopped, because people will realize now this is over and then they will return to their homes and then they will see how can we live again, how can we rebuild this lives or our lives again, when everything has been destroyed, like demolished.
Speaker 2:We talk not only houses, we talk about everything in life yeah, and that makes me think of your, your film again, um, because, uh, you have uh both. Like you, you also base yourself on, like um, old material you had, yeah, yeah, uh. So, um, I also experienced this film as a like a positive film, like you want to show like the world old, like how it was there, um, so I feel like it's a hopeful film that tries to make us remember how it looks and this also, like I mean this all.
Speaker 1:I mean I always wanted to show the beauty of my city, because we have all the pictures, as you see now, like it's only the damage which is the reality and the facts that is happening. And for me, I mean, working on this film wasn't like now or like after that, it was already in progress. I finished just right before the events or after before, just right before October or during the first week of October. And for me, I finished editing. You know, I looked at the picture and I did the sound recording during, after, while my family being under attack and being, uh, evacuating our house to go to the south and area of gaza, where they are now. So it wasn't uh, like, uh. It would have been different film if I made it now because, of course, like it's not like.
Speaker 1:That's also why the question why is life is beautiful? I mean, this is also what I wanted to see and this is what I wanted to like live for, and that was has been always the motto of my life, that shaped me. And suddenly, now, everything is collapsing and uh, um. So this is where we're standing, like now, and we hope that at some point that we will be able to to, to rebuild, like, try to, I don't know, like I mean everybody need a therapy, like I mean ever. We all need the like to to kind of free and heavily and have a relation to um, because we, I mean like, for how long can you, can you, like your brain is we will all gonna be damaged for years. Like your brain is we will all going to be damaged for years because of all this Like it's not just like words that we say, it's our reality and we see how we lost already I lost many friends already in this war and also like it just like keeps coming and you know for how long can you hold your breath or for how long can you take in more like sadness and sad news.
Speaker 1:So that's where I feel like it's an important way also to be able to tell, share, talk more about our reality, not only in Gaza but also here, and that's why also I made this film to show our palestinian reality outside. Here in norway, how do I live? What happened to me? Like it's not a smooth, like uh, life. Maybe I tried to make it, but it wasn't, because there were always a kind of walls and obstacles I also like, also like noticed in the film.
Speaker 2:You say you were 10 years old when the second intifada began.
Speaker 1:I mean, for me I was. It didn't start now. I didn't witness a bomb now, today or in 2014, when I joined the ambulance. It's been always like the experience. I can tell you an example when I joined the ambulance, it's been always like the strike experience. I can tell you an example Once in I think it was in 2002, I was in the seventh grade we were returning from or the school suddenly went on a strike.
Speaker 1:We went to the school and then they got a kind of a call that this should be a strike and they said they were going to bomb locations close to the school and that was still the Palestinian Authority who was leading us. It was like they bombed the. We left the school and on our way home they were the intelligence service building or like what they call the security, the police, let's say like the police building what you call it, the Palestinian security police, amn al-Wiqa'i, the Palestinian security police, and we were on the way and they like a huge building and just I was standing by the corner where an F-16 warplane bombed the place and I felt like I mean, I've seen the F-16 going like down when it bombed the place and when it kind of rised again and feeling all the pressure. I was like seven or eight years old, no, like 12 years old, and then, like I felt all the pressure coming into my face and then, at that moment, my brother Ali. I kind of missed him, like I didn't know where he is, and suddenly seeing my mother coming after all this. I was looking, missed him, like I didn't know where he is and suddenly seeing my mother coming after all this, I was looking for him and she came because she was stressed, she wanted to come to to find us. And then late, or like a few, like five minutes later, after we were searching and asking, and then we found Ali and we went home.
Speaker 1:But this experience, of course, it stays in me. It's not like I remember it as as if it's today and it's not like something that it's will remove, be gone by time. No, it's, it's kind of a trauma too. And time, no, it's it's kind of a trauma too. And this is, this is like still was a second intifada. It wasn't, it wasn't over yet.
Speaker 1:And before that, also like going, growing up. And also shijia we still, when we started, when the second father started, we were living in Shijia and we moved in 2001, a year after the second intifada, some we lost, also like friends in the class, like they were going there to look and throw stones and all this. And then you remember all this like that we always been on strike like uh, burning tires, like, and looking around like not not that me who's burning it. But you see, like you grow, like you grow up in this situation climate of uh, of a change that people fighting for their freedom like, and then lately, how also I experienced, when they decided to disengage with Gaza and evacuate all the settlements, and this when the settlements became a free land for Palestinians, and how they also destroyed it and left it. So it's elements like this of course it resonates in you and it does affect you and your future and the way how also you're shaped, in a way.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, because you know that's. Yeah, I think that's why it stayed with me, because many people forget that you have grown up with this since you were a kid and still I think it's very interesting that, instead of kind of turning to anger, it feels like you, you turn all it all into, like you, you film it instead or like how do you manage to not be?
Speaker 1:angry. I mean, it's also like when you reflect onto a memory, it's you try to construct the memory, even if it's like in your head, just to try to make the experience as close to you. And this is also the power of storytelling and how to use the right materials, of course, like when you look to a personal archive also before I wanted to become a filmmaker how all this built up and that's how also using which image and which picture to tell kind of the right story, like to support the stories that I'm telling. And that's the choice where I used, like also to choose from all what I have you know, so did.
Speaker 2:You always knew that you wanted to become like a filmmaker. Your dad worked with TVs.
Speaker 1:No, I mean it became more clear in the age of 20 or 19 or 20 that I liked more the camera and the elements, because I used to paint a lot and also used to like other things in cultural field, like dance, theater, and even like I was a scout from the age of, I think from the age of 10, or like from the fourth grade till end of high school, so, and also learning drumming and other things. So it's so. It's not only like I was active in all these fields and this is where it shaped me, like when I wanted to use my eye to take photos across Gaza and reflect on the beauty of the city.
Speaker 2:And you have also managed to capture it. And you have also managed to capture it.
Speaker 1:And especially I was very interested in, like you know, the old archive materials of, you know, the kids with the basketballs and the Gaza airport. Exactly, they were like a guinness record breaking record uh for for uh at we, because then you need a big space to use this, like to break this record of uh, um, kind of moving the basketball at the same time for the largest amount to uh of people using the basketball number with this, like what you call it I don't even remember they were in norwegian, like I don't know like yeah, I mean moving it
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah yeah, exactly so. And and you needed a big space, and the only space that can fit it was the, the field of the airport, what you call it, the, the airport field where the landing.
Speaker 1:There is a name for it the landing strip the, the where you land and take off, the airport field. Basically, I don't know what it's called. We have a name for it Mahbat in Arabic. So that's how and that was the space where it fit, and the airport at that time was already bombed and not functioned and was being already destroyed if you can see in the background, so all the monitoring towers. So it was used for breaking these records, the airport so, and then at that moment I was a witness, like I was volunteering to be one of the witnesses to see this is the group dead, well and right and science. So where many? So I was there and filmed from my phone at that time and I still have more. Also, there was something for breaking records we were flying kites at the same time. It was on the Gaza beach and there were so many kids at the same time flying kites, and also Gaza broke that record.
Speaker 3:Mohammed Jabali has lost many close friends and relatives and the city he has grown up in is in ruins. What is the way forward now for the young researcher and his family?
Speaker 1:who lives in Gaza all my life here on returning, and now my family wanted to leave this because it's been too much and of course, I want to support them.
Speaker 1:I want to stand by their side and give them the this opportunity to to heal from this wound that's been open for all these years I mean not only the last five months and they had experienced enough, and I think that's like I mean people can help by supporting, like I mean my brother and sister launched this campaign, but also like still like we needed, like to be able to rebuild Gaza at some point, like a way of contribution to the situation where people start thinking loud and to see how we can kind of rebuild the whole city again.
Speaker 1:And I want to invite all the people to come and go there at some point to be able to see also the reality that we live and also, hopefully, I wanted the world to see my city in a normal time, but now it's a bit difficult and, as I said, my impact project or outreach project with the film was to rebuild the cinema, and I'm joking now saying I have to rebuild all my city and that's the strange part.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's a lot to carry and it's so much pain and hopefully this pain will disappear by sharing it and by calling for the freedom of Palestinians, and also will want people never to stop talking about Palestine and Palestinians, even if they are overwhelmed by the news and by the situation, but still they have to understand freedom is already costing us so many lives and at some point we're all going to celebrate it together and that's what I want to end with. It's just like freedom to all, and I, a city yesterday and I'm gonna say it again is freedom shouldn't be given, it should be already, be there and it should be. If someone take your freedom from you, you have to take it back. That's the freedom like we all born free and then we should be normally free and that's what I hope for, like to see a free Palestine and we end that together.
Speaker 2:The occupation, it's not the cause of humanity, I feel now, maybe because of social media, I feel that more people also in the States actually get to see how like direct yeah, from inside Gaza for the first time, like in this scale, or do you feel any difference now in how people talk about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is a big, huge shift in the narrative, and the stories were talking about palestine and I think that's uh, that's a great shift in the international narrative also on our struggle, and I think more and more people are aware of our life and our situation. And then I think social media played a big role of showing this and by highlighting this, like the first-hand filmmakers who've been putting their stories online and the coverage this were that helped a lot of opening an eye for the word. But we, I mean still, you know, the cost is super high. We talk about over 30,000 people being killed. I mean, the whole world has to open its eyes to what's going on and I think that's what's happening now. People are reacting to the situation, people are demonstrating in the street and trying to do what they can to stop this, and that's a change and the hope for even change, to be able to celebrate our freedom at some point.
Speaker 2:Like now, when you're going to go to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is a long tour. I'm going to Tromso and then after that I think the film will be screened in Oluson, geneva Zurich. I can't tell you all the plans because I can't remember, but there is a long tour scheduled in Prague and in Brussels, like it's all.
Speaker 2:like the film will be shown all over the place and it's already been screened in IDFA, one of the like most prestigious film festivals in the world this is where it's opened.
Speaker 1:And then we had the Norway's premiere in Tromsø festival. It was the opening film, which was also big home premiere for Tromsø and it was kind of a reward for the city. I think it was great feeling, as you hear in the background yes, so yeah, and a lot to do, like more. This is not gonna be my last film, so will be more to do and more to come yeah, cool, we're looking forward to it yes, thank you so much either thank you so much, muhammad.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
