Synopsis
In the rural outskirts of Gaza City a small community of farmers, the extended Samouni family, is about to celebrate a wedding. It’s going to be the first celebration since the latest war. Amal, Fuad, their brothers and cousins have lost their parents, their houses and their olive trees. The neighborhood where they live is being rebuilt. As they replant trees and plow fields, they face their most difficult task: piecing together their own memory. Through these young survivors’ recollections, Samouni Road conveys a deep, multifaceted portrait of a family before, during, and after the tragic events that changed their lives forever.
A word from Tënk
On December 27th 2008, Israel began to bombard the Gaza Strip launching the ignoble Operation Cast Lead, which Stefano Savona has already discussed in his eponymous documentary in 2009. Samouni Road is the story of what’s left after a war, the echo of the pain that haunts the streets strewn with rubble, nightmares and ghosts. But it’s also about the Samouni clan’s return to normality in this inexorably damaged place. Savona begins the tale with the children, the innocent victims in any war, but also symbols of purity and hope in reconstructing a brighter future.
Amal is one of them, a child still struggling with her physical and mental wounds, and who doesn’t know how to tell a story. This personal, tormented memory is the missing image that Savona takes charge of and whose representation he entrusts to the poetic and dramatic animation of artist Simone Massi.
Claudia Maci
Managing Director
Festival dei Popoli
