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France 24
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
Cannes 2025: Gaza casts shadow over festival, but films celebrate Palestinian resilience
A first national pavilion in years and a pair of films with glowing reviews would normally be cause for celebration in Cannes. But at the tent housing the Palestine pavilion, a short walk from Cannes' Palais des Festivals, no one has come to the glitzy French Riviera gathering for the revelry. "We're clearly not here for the Cannes party," says film producer Rashid Abdelhamid, his voice drowned out by the ruckus of a cocktail event at the adjacent American Pavilion. "But we're doing our own celebrations – of life and resilience," adds the producer of festival hit "One Upon a Time in Gaza", which premiered to rapturous applause earlier this week. "We want to show that we're here, that we're alive, that we want to live and dance like everyone else," he adds. "And that we're staying where we are." 'Nothing left' of Gaza Gaza-born twin brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser came up with the idea for "Once Upon a Time in Gaza" well before the start of the ongoing war that has wiped out most of their homeland – and made the title to their film eerily timely. The movie is set in 2007, the year Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip and Israel began its crippling blockade of the territory. The Nasser brothers describe it as a "brutal turning point" for the overcrowded sliver of land, setting in motion a chain of events that will eventually lead to the "destruction" of Gaza and its people. The war still raging in Gaza has killed more than 53,000 people, most of them women and children, according to health officials. Israel has vowed to "take full control" of the besieged territory of more than two million inhabitants, where UN agencies have warned of famine after a longstanding blockade was further tightened in March. The Nasser brothers, who left Gaza in 2011 and shoot their movies in Jordan, describe their latest feature as "archival material" documenting a place that no longer exists. "Everything one says about Gaza now has to be in the past tense, because there's nothing left of the Gaza we knew," says Arab Nasser. "Israel has destroyed it from north to south. The streets, the trees, the people – it's all gone." Gazan Rambo "Once Upon a Time in Gaza", which screened in Cannes' Un Certain Regard segment, follows low-level drug dealer Yahia (Majd Eid) and his flunkey Osama (Nadel Abd Alhay) as they try to make a little extra cash by selling drugs stuffed into falafel sandwiches. The unassuming Osama dreams of a better life outside the blockaded territory, but wounds up hired by its new Islamist leaders to star as an unlikely Palestinian Rambo in a propaganda TV series. 11:32 As in their previous films, including "Gaza Mon Amour" (2020), the Nasser brothers delve into dramedy and bleak humour to shed light on the plight of their homeland's stricken population. There are no special effects in Gaza, the producer of the B-grade series points out in one scene, "but we do have live bullets". Tarzan Nasser spoke of the emotional struggle of making the film while war raged back home, each day calling on relatives to see if they were "still alive". But he says dropping the project was never an option. "It's our duty to tell the story of Gaza," he says. "The genocide of our people is taking place as we speak, and the world is sitting on its hands." 'Finding life in all this death' This year's festival has opened against a backdrop of mounting outrage at the ongoing war, which began in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 were killed, most of them civilians, and more than 250 people were taken hostage. On the eve of the festival, "Schindler's List" actor Ralph Fiennes and Hollywood star Richard Gere were among more than 380 figures to sign an open letter slamming the film industry's silence over "genocide" in Gaza. The letter, published by Libération and Variety, decried the killing of photojournalist Fatma Hassona, whose efforts to document the destruction of Gaza are the subject of a documentary screened in Cannes. The festival's jury president Juliette Binoche also played tribute to Hassona during the opening ceremony, reading excerpts from a poem by the 25-year-old Gazan, who was killed by an Israeli missile strike on her home the day after the film was selected for Cannes' ACID sidebar. As filmmaker Sepideh Farsi shows in her documentary "Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk", which has drawn huge crowds in Cannes, Hassona did more than simply document the war. Hers was an act of resistance, a dogged determination, as she put it, to "find some life in all this death". The exiled Iranian filmmaker has lamented a collective failure to confront and sanction Israel's far-right government over the ongoing war and its stated aim to expel Gaza's population. "Just like there was no justification for what happened on October 7, nothing can justify what is happening in Gaza," Farsi told FRANCE 24 on the eve of the festival. "We cannot just stand by and let the massacre go on." 'Reclaim our narratives' Hassona's photographs documenting the war in Gaza are exhibited at three different venues in Cannes, including at the pavilion run by the Palestine Film Institute (PFI), an independent body that supports films by and about Palestinians. A founding member of the PFI, Abdelhamid, says he is not surprised it has taken so long for film stars to speak out against the war. Since the October 7 attacks, he adds, "many people have kept quiet, fearing for their jobs". The producer of "Once Upon a Time in Gaza" says he struggled to finance the film in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks as several partners, including some Arab countries, withdrew the funds they had pledged. "Financing a Palestinian movie is never easy," he says. "After October 7 it got even harder." The Palestinian Pavilion in Cannes is only the second in the festival's history and the first since 2018. At roundtables in Cannes, PFI representatives have urged the festival and key decision-makers in the industry to help amplify the voice of Palestinian filmmakers and stories. The institute, which relies on support from foreign donors, is backing a slate of documentary projects at the Cannes Film Market, which runs parallel with the festival. The films talk about children scraping a living in Gaza, shepherds confronting settler expansion in the West Bank, and young actresses pursuing their artistic aspirations. Abdelhamid says cinema has a critical role to play in countering misrepresentations of the Mideast conflict and the Palestinian people. "We need to reclaim our narratives to show that Palestinians have not always been refugees living in tents," he says. "We have nightclubs and bars in Palestine, and young people with TikTok accounts, just like everywhere else."
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Germany to deport ‘single and healthy' asylum seekers to Greece
Single, healthy male asylum seekers who have travelled to Germany via Greece can be deported back to the Mediterranean state, a top German court has ruled. In a boost for Friedrich Merz, the incoming German chancellor who wants to reduce migration levels, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled that asylum seekers who meet the criteria can cope with a lack of state support in Greece, because they will not face inhumane treatment in the country. Robert Keller, one of the judges, said that the ruling was ultimately based on whether refugees in Greece had access to 'bread, bed and soap'. He said: 'That's not much, we know that.' Mr Merz's incoming coalition, comprising his Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centre-Left Social Democrats, has vowed to turn away asylum seekers en masse from Germany's borders, claiming public services are 'overwhelmed'. The ruling means that asylum seekers who entered the European Union via Greece and were granted asylum, but then continued to Germany and lodged a new claim, risk being sent back by German authorities. Under the Dublin Agreement, asylum seekers are supposed to have their claims processed in the first EU country they enter, but those rules are rarely enforced. The ruling was a response to an appeal by two refugees, a citizen of Somalia and a Gaza-born man, who were seeking to overturn their deportation orders to Greece. The two men fled their home countries in 2017 and 2018, crossed through Turkey and were granted refugee status in Greece, the German news agency DPA reported. They continued on to Germany and lodged new asylum applications that were rejected by German authorities, who then issued deportation orders to Greece. The men filed appeals against the deportation orders because they feared that they would face severe hardship in Greece, such as a lack of access to basic services and hostility towards asylum seekers. German courts have generally struggled to deport refugees back to Greece due to resistance from human rights groups and legal appeals, which argue that the living conditions for refugees in Greece are extremely poor. But the ruling by the Federal Administrative Court found that single, healthy, able-bodied male migrants should be able to cope with the poorer living standards awaiting them in Greece. 'It cannot be expected with any significant probability that able-bodied, healthy and single young male beneficiaries of protection returning to Greece will find themselves in extreme material hardship, preventing them from meeting their most basic needs in terms of accommodation, food, and hygiene,' the ruling states, according to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The ruling accepted that waiting times for documents and a general lack of state support in Greece were an issue for asylum seekers, but they 'can likely find accommodation at least in temporary shelters or emergency accommodations with basic sanitary facilities', it said. It comes after a senior CDU MP told The Telegraph that German capacity for refugees was exhausted, after taking in millions of people from Syria, Afghanistan and most recently Ukraine. Günter Krings said: 'More than four million asylum seekers and war refugees came to Germany in the last decade; our capacities to integrate so many people into our society are exhausted, our public order and internal security severely affected.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Germany to deport ‘single and healthy' asylum seekers to Greece
Single, healthy male asylum seekers who have travelled to Germany via Greece can be deported back to the Mediterranean state, a top German court has ruled. In a boost for Friedrich Merz, the incoming German chancellor who wants to reduce migration levels, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled that asylum seekers who meet the criteria can cope with a lack of state support in Greece, because they will not face inhumane treatment in the country. Robert Keller, one of the judges, said that the ruling was ultimately based on whether refugees in Greece had access to 'bread, bed and soap'. He said: 'That's not much, we know that.' Mr Merz's incoming coalition, comprising his Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centre-Left Social Democrats, has vowed to turn away asylum seekers en masse from Germany's borders, claiming public services are 'overwhelmed'. The ruling means that asylum seekers who entered the European Union via Greece and were granted asylum, but then continued to Germany and lodged a new claim, risk being sent back by German authorities. Under the Dublin Agreement, asylum seekers are supposed to have their claims processed in the first EU country they enter, but those rules are rarely enforced. Resistance from human rights groups The ruling was a response to an appeal by two refugees, a citizen of Somalia and a Gaza-born man, who were seeking to overturn their deportation orders to Greece. The two men fled their home countries in 2017 and 2018, crossed through Turkey and were granted refugee status in Greece, the German news agency DPA reported. They continued on to Germany and lodged new asylum applications that were rejected by German authorities, who then issued deportation orders to Greece. The men filed appeals against the deportation orders because they feared that they would face severe hardship in Greece, such as a lack of access to basic services and hostility towards asylum seekers. German courts have generally struggled to deport refugees back to Greece due to resistance from human rights groups and legal appeals, which argue that the living conditions for refugees in Greece are extremely poor. But the ruling by the Federal Administrative Court found that single, healthy, able-bodied male migrants should be able to cope with the poorer living standards awaiting them in Greece. 'Our capacities to integrate them are exhausted' 'It cannot be expected with any significant probability that able-bodied, healthy and single young male beneficiaries of protection returning to Greece will find themselves in extreme material hardship, preventing them from meeting their most basic needs in terms of accommodation, food, and hygiene,' the ruling states, according to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The ruling accepted that waiting times for documents and a general lack of state support in Greece were an issue for asylum seekers, but they 'can likely find accommodation at least in temporary shelters or emergency accommodations with basic sanitary facilities', it said. It comes after a senior CDU MP told The Telegraph that German capacity for refugees was exhausted, after taking in millions of people from Syria, Afghanistan and most recently Ukraine. Günter Krings said: 'More than four million asylum seekers and war refugees came to Germany in the last decade; our capacities to integrate so many people into our society are exhausted, our public order and internal security severely affected.'
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - When it comes to deportations, why are the media hiding the ball?
Few things are so unhelpful as the journalist who buries the lede. There has been a lot of that lately, especially insofar as the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is concerned. Take, for example, the case of the Georgetown University researcher arrested in Virginia last week over his alleged ties to terrorism. Badar Khan Suri reportedly spread Hamas propaganda online while having 'close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,' according to the Department of Homeland Security. This is pretty serious stuff, which is why the coverage has been so maddening. In most reports, the allegations against Suri are buried so deep as to be next to the dinosaur bones. 'Trump is seeking to deport another academic who is legally in the country, lawsuit says,' reported Politico on March 19. The subhead adds, 'Badar Khan Suri, a fellow at Georgetown, says he is being punished because of the suspected views of his wife, a U.S. citizen with Palestinian heritage.' The Associated Press ran the same story, but with the headline, 'Government cannot deport Georgetown scholar until court rules, judge orders.' The subhead adds, 'A federal judge has ordered immigration officials not to deport a Georgetown scholar that the government detained until the court has had a chance to rule.' NBC News published the headline, 'Georgetown University graduate student detained by immigration authorities,' with a subhead that reads, 'A lawyer for Badar Khan Suri, who was teaching on a student visa, said Thursday that he is grateful for the support he has received since his arrest.' These are just a few headlines and news blurbs plucked at random, but they represent the overall coverage. We are immediately provided with the who, what, where and even when — but not with the why. That's an omission so glaring as to be intentional. It is possible — but unlikely — for a journalist to forget outright one of the five Ws of lede writing. But the entire newsroom? And for the issue to be spread out over multiple organizations? The word 'unlikely' is getting a workout this week. Now, regarding Suri's arrest, there are some pertinent details you ought to know. First, he is in the U.S. on a temporary visa. He is an Indian national and married to Mapheze Saleh, a Gaza-born U.S. resident. Saleh is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, who has served as a senior political adviser for Hamas (although he claims he no longer holds this position). To recap: A guest in the U.S., who is the son-in-law of a (possibly) former Hamas official, has been arrested and detained on allegations that he promotes agitprop for a designated terrorist organization. Whether the charges hold up is one thing, but these are indisputably the federal government's allegations against Suri. Yet, were you to read Politico's original scoop on the matter, you couldn't find DHS's justification for the arrest until the ninth paragraph, and that's only after the reader is told the foreign national 'has no criminal record' and merely '[opposes] U.S. foreign policy toward Israel,' or so says his lawyer. The Associated Press does only slightly better, mentioning the Hamas propaganda in the opening paragraph but failing to note Suri's connection to Hamas leadership. The Associated Press eventually revealed this connection, but only in passing and only to suggest there's no there there. And maybe there isn't, but when this familial connection represents half of DHS's argument against Suri, why save that information for the 10th paragraph, and why note it only in passing? By glossing over this latter detail and focusing solely on the 'propaganda' angle, the Associated Press has effectively reframed the story as a free speech issue exclusively, rather than one that also concerns alleged national security issues. For NBC News, it took 11 paragraphs before readers learned of the allegations against Suri. The coverage has been every bit as befuddling and exasperating as the initial coverage of the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, the 30-year-old Columbia student and legal permanent resident whom ICE arrested and detained over his alleged support for Hamas. If you recall the early coverage of his arrest, there was plenty in terms of human interest — everything from details of Khalil's marriage to his campus activities. But there was precious little about why the federal government detained him. It took me multiple articles and independent research to understand DHS's position — not because the federal government lacked an explanation, but because few media outlets bothered to publish it. There's a robust and worthwhile debate to be had about these arrests. Some conservatives have expressed discomfort over the legality of such actions. However, it will be impossible to have the discussion if the media continue to hide the ball on the why of these arrests, ignoring or downplaying the behaviors and factors federal authorities cite as legal justification. We can't have the debate if we have only partial information. Becket Adams is a writer in Washington and program director for the National Journalism Center. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
24-03-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
When it comes to deportations, why are the media hiding the ball?
Few things are so unhelpful as the journalist who buries the lede. There has been a lot of that lately, especially insofar as the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is concerned. Take, for example, the case of the Georgetown University researcher arrested in Virginia last week over his alleged ties to terrorism. Badar Khan Suri reportedly spread Hamas propaganda online while having 'close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,' according to the Department of Homeland Security. This is pretty serious stuff, which is why the coverage has been so maddening. In most reports, the allegations against Suri are buried so deep as to be next to the dinosaur bones. 'Trump is seeking to deport another academic who is legally in the country, lawsuit says,' reported Politico on March 19. The subhead adds, 'Badar Khan Suri, a fellow at Georgetown, says he is being punished because of the suspected views of his wife, a U.S. citizen with Palestinian heritage.' The Associated Press ran the same story, but with the headline, 'Government cannot deport Georgetown scholar until court rules, judge orders.' The subhead adds, 'A federal judge has ordered immigration officials not to deport a Georgetown scholar that the government detained until the court has had a chance to rule.' NBC News published the headline, 'Georgetown University graduate student detained by immigration authorities,' with a subhead that reads, 'A lawyer for Badar Khan Suri, who was teaching on a student visa, said Thursday that he is grateful for the support he has received since his arrest.' These are just a few headlines and news blurbs plucked at random, but they represent the overall coverage. We are immediately provided with the who, what, where and even when — but not with the why. That's an omission so glaring as to be intentional. It is possible — but unlikely — for a journalist to forget outright one of the five Ws of lede writing. But the entire newsroom? And for the issue to be spread out over multiple organizations? The word 'unlikely' is getting a workout this week. Now, regarding Suri's arrest, there are some pertinent details you ought to know. First, he is in the U.S. on a temporary visa. He is an Indian national and married to Mapheze Saleh, a Gaza-born U.S. resident. Saleh is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, who has served as a senior political adviser for Hamas (although he claims he no longer holds this position). To recap: A guest in the U.S., who is the son-in-law of a (possibly) former Hamas official, has been arrested and detained on allegations that he promotes agitprop for a designated terrorist organization. Whether the charges hold up is one thing, but these are indisputably the federal government's allegations against Suri. Yet, were you to read Politico's original scoop on the matter, you couldn't find DHS's justification for the arrest until the ninth paragraph, and that's only after the reader is told the foreign national 'has no criminal record' and merely '[opposes] U.S. foreign policy toward Israel,' or so says his lawyer. The Associated Press does only slightly better, mentioning the Hamas propaganda in the opening paragraph but failing to note Suri's connection to Hamas leadership. The Associated Press eventually revealed this connection, but only in passing and only to suggest there's no there there. And maybe there isn't, but when this familial connection represents half of DHS's argument against Suri, why save that information for the 10th paragraph, and why note it only in passing? By glossing over this latter detail and focusing solely on the 'propaganda' angle, the Associated Press has effectively reframed the story as a free speech issue exclusively, rather than one that also concerns alleged national security issues. For NBC News, it took 11 paragraphs before readers learned of the allegations against Suri. The coverage has been every bit as befuddling and exasperating as the initial coverage of the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, the 30-year-old Columbia student and legal permanent resident whom ICE arrested and detained over his alleged support for Hamas. If you recall the early coverage of his arrest, there was plenty in terms of human interest — everything from details of Khalil's marriage to his campus activities. But there was precious little about why the federal government detained him. It took me multiple articles and independent research to understand DHS's position — not because the federal government lacked an explanation, but because few media outlets bothered to publish it. There's a robust and worthwhile debate to be had about these arrests. Some conservatives have expressed discomfort over the legality of such actions. However, it will be impossible to have the discussion if the media continue to hide the ball on the why of these arrests, ignoring or downplaying the behaviors and factors federal authorities cite as legal justification. We can't have the debate if we have only partial information.
