Origin: Netherlands | Documentary | Director: Laurens Samsom | 84 minutes

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Team Gaza

by Laurens Samsom, documentary 84 min, Arabic, English, Dutch, with English subtitles, 2016 Netherlands

On a sweltering summer morning in 2015, the Dutch documentary makers Frederick Mansell and Laurens Samsom cross the border between Israel and Gaza. Carrying cases filled with camera equipment, they walk the red concrete corridor with fences on either side: the entrance to the hermetically sealed Gaza Strip.

During the following year, Frederick and Laurens stay in Gaza regularly. Their aim is to find ordinary life during intermittent spells of relative peace/ in times when the war has briefly calmed down, and they find this in a local football team. Even in Gaza, people dream of distant travels, owning a home or starting a family with their beloved. The circumstances, however, are very much out of the ordinary: suburbs are shot to pieces, people depend on food aid, there is shortage of virtually all primary necessities and there is a constant threat of violence.

Website: https://www.teamgaza.nl/

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/186433088

Documenting the lives of four young people daring to dream in Gaza, a land strip sealed off from the outside world. Stuck between walls these four Gazans try to build their lives. One wants to marry his niece, a second tries to rebuild his bombarded house, a third tries to flee the strip and the last turns to weapons. Together they unite in a football team, the only place where they can forget about everything. Outside of the football pitch, they pray and they fight for a better future, despite the hardships in war-torn Gaza

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