SleeplessinGaza's channel

About this user

"Sleepless in Gaza...and Jerusalem" is a video diary of young Palestinian women, Muslim and Christian, living in Gaza, Jerusalem and the rest of The West Bank that shows the real life of Palestinians living under occupation! Through the daily lives of the Sleepless Girls who moved in all directions across Palestine we were able to put on film a three month segment of life there with its diverse reality be it social, political, economic, religious, military -- at times in combination.
PINA TV Production crews followed Ashira Ramadan, a broadcast journalist & Ala' Khayo Makari an accountant; both from Jerusalem. Diana Alzeer, a media officer & Yara Al Amleh, a radio reporter; both from Ramallah. In Gaza, Nagham Mohanna, a print journalist and filmmaker, Dona Maria Mattas, a 17 year-old student, Berlanty Azam, a recent graduate of Business Administration, Farah Abu Qasem, a student at the University of Palestine, and Eman Al Belbeisi, an English teacher at Al-Azhar University. 104 reality films were created in 90 days and we made one more film on Day 92 to cover the Flotilla crisis -- a total of 105 films. No script, no actors & no intervention! Only reality -- be it good, bad or ugly!
The Sleepless series records tears of laughter, tears of sadness , tears of devastation; weddings, concerts & funerals; cooking, shopping & four deaths: three men killed and one woman who died in hospital on camera; occupation and its package from many angles including but not limited to its aggression, military laws, dispossession of people, confiscation of land, settlements, the Wall of Separation, the siege of Gaza, racism & apartheid, prisoners & detainees and the peace makers & human rights activists from both sides; the prayers and traditions of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Druze and Baha'is; Palestinians, Israelis and people from all over the world.
The series, to quote the Huffington Post "does not go out of its way to be political, it remains heavily so; because life under a foreign military occupation is inherently and unavoidably political." So all of the Palestinian movements intersect at times with the daily lives of the Palestinians -- Fateh, Hamas, PFLP, People's Party, DFLP, Islamic Jihad and the independents; the personalities that make the news -- President of the PLO Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority Salam Fayyad, Ex-Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and the faces of many leaders of civil society, churches and more; the rich, the middle class and the very poor; those living in cities, villages, refugee camps or in tents; the city dwellers, peasants and Bedouins; history, present and dreams of the future; issues of gender, education, children, drugs, health, water, business, and workers who travel to Israel at 4:00 am for their bread and butter; the problems of today and the solutions of tomorrow. Most importantly they are all real faces of real people who have real voices and live in real places.
These video diaries form a large film library that can now be used by everyone to communicate the reality of life in Palestine to the public online. We invite you to send out the URLs of the films and we will give you permission to download them and upload them again on your portals. We also have a broadcast quality series for television and we can make re-edits to show in cinemas, conferences, screenings, film festivals and wherever we can show the films. We have the ability to translate and subtitle to all languages and if you would like to air it on television or show it somewhere please contact us on at SleeplessinGaza@gmail.com
We have created the tools for you to find the film you need fast but we can't publish them here for lack of space: For a full log of films descriptions, a detailed glossary, and an "at a glimpse" directory that will help you find the film you want to watch or communicate to others fast, please visit our Facebook group: Sleepless in Gaza...and Jerusalem . The tools are published there in NOTES.

Director: Ramzi Khoury, Executive Producer: Abdallah Schleifer, Director of Photography: Walid Sababa, West Bank Producer: Samar Stephan, Gaza Producer: Jibril Abu Kmeal, Online Editor: Raed Jaser, Offline Editors: Raed Khoury & George Barham, Cameramen: Raed Khoury, Nibal Hijo, Nader Babers & Khalil Khader, Camera Assistant: Mansour Zogra, Soundman: Ahmad Abu Kmeal, Music Composer: Raed Hawileh, Graphic Designer: Jalal Najjar, Assistant Producers: Naser Najjar & Tagred Baleha.
Again, we can be reached at: SleeplessinGaza@gmail.com