Between Reality and Documentary

Examines the representation of refugees in Gaza through colonial, humanitarian and Palestinian documentary films between the final years of the British colonial era, and the Oslo Agreement of 1993.

This book deserves to be on the shelves of every university and college library and its author must be congratulated for exposing the real face of Israel’s terrorism, brutality and violations of basic human norms and values.

This book offers a critical, original and urgent study of the historical ideological cinematic representations of Palestinian refugees, with a focus on Gazan refugees, from Mandatory Palestine until the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. Through a detailed analysis of filmic representations, including the colonial newsreels of British Pathe, the book systematically addresses the competing discourses of imperial legacy that have contributed both to the “naturalisation”, denigration and isolation of Palestinians as a subject people, while highlighting their consistent and continuing resistance. The book is a timely critical account that offers a counter narrative to the de-historicised language of colonial and settler colonial exceptionalism around Gaza and Palestine.

With incisive alertness to historical and aesthetic resonance, Between Reality and Documentary conscientiously exposes how different filmmaking practices – from the colonial to the humanitarian to the liberatory – each stake their claim on the territory of Gaza. Shahd Abusalama’s scholarship powerfully exemplifies academic writing as anti-colonial activism.

A crucial text for anyone interested in Palestine and its painful history under Zionist occupation, mapping the history of Gaza in the twentieth century through the illustrated perspective of documentary cinema representation. The rich, complex and vibrant story of Gaza is vividly told – a narrative of strength and perseverance against the odds - a struggle for modernity, liberation and justice. Reading this at the time of the Gaza genocide offers a special take on its crucial importance for a future, post-Zionist Palestinian democracy – highly readable and warmly recommended.

Shahd Abusalama is an activist scholar, artist and writer, born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp, Gaza. She graduated from Sheffield Hallam University, UK, with a Ph.D. examining the historical representations of Gaza in documentary films between 1917 and 1993. She is the author of the Palestine from My Eyes blog and book, and a co-founder of London-based Hawiyya Dance Company.