“It’s all these incredibly complex and contrasting points through which Yalla Parkour offers up a true insight into the existence of the Palestinian people, both in their homeland and throughout the diaspora.”

While all eyes may have been turned towards Gaza in the fall of 2023 as Israel tried to obliterate it, the strip had been under attack long before grabbing global attention. Time and time again the Palestinian population, exiled there since the Nakba (which translates quite aptly to ‘the catastrophe’) of 1948, have been subjected to bombardments, invasions and displacement. Why, one may be tempted to ask? Because unlike their brothers and sisters in the West Bank, Gaza is ruled by Palestinians, policed by Palestinians and occupied, to use a word the media likes so much, by Palestinians. Between 2005 and 2023, no Israeli soldier or government official set foot on the tiny lip of seafront land facing the Mediterranean.

In Yalla Parkour, which holds the dubious status of being the only Palestinian title in the festival, the multi-national, US-based filmmaker Areeb Zuaiter has assembled a documentary that at once honors her own roots, memories, and Palestinian mother, but also shines the spotlight on the resilience, courage, and creativity of the youth of Gaza. While those around the tiny nation think up ways to make the inhabitants of Gaza leave, there is a resolution within each and every Palestinian to stay put and create the kind of world they would like to live in, with their imagination. If this sounds like the premise of a best-selling book or a futuristic film, it isn’t. As it turns out, it’s everyday life in Gaza.

Remembering her mom who passed away in 2012, and the first time she herself visited the sea in Gaza at the age of four, Zuaiter begins scrolling videos online. She discovers a group of parkour athletes who perform their breathtaking stunts and joke around, while bombs explode in the background as a reminder that we are in the period of the 2014 Gaza war. One of those smiling faces belongs to Ahmed, a young man who began practicing parkour – the sport of traversing urban and environmental obstacles by running, climbing, or leaping rapidly and efficiently – as a pre-teen, to imitate his older friends. Together, Areeb on her laptop and Ahmed on the ground begin a journey of discovery, one which will lead them both to unexpected places.

The brilliance of Zuaiter’s film lies in the complete vulnerability of her filmed images and in the way she shows the audience both her own emotions and those of her subject. Each of them, she throughout the film and Ahmed towards the end of the story, has to deal with guilt – the guilt those who have managed to leave always feel towards those they have left behind. Yalla Parkour also utilizes a sport – in 2017 parkour was recognized officially as one in the UK – which encourages those who practice it to engage with both the environment around them and other parkour athletes around the world, the latter nearly impossible for the youth stuck in Gaza. This sport, which has been seen in films from Casino Royale to The Bourne Ultimatum, allows Zuaiter to show the true imprisonment of a whole people without preaching to or ‘educating’ the audience. While watching her film, I was reminded of the famous lyrics from Janis Joplin’s ‘Me and Bobby McGee’, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”

As Ahmed and his Khan Yunis-based crew (which includes Abdullah Inshasi and Mohammed Al-Jakhbir) jump, run and tumble through the ruins of shopping malls, hotels, and shelled-out cars, they somehow for a split moment in time manage to turn battlegrounds and refugee camps into playgrounds and sports facilities. The sea, a symbol of freedom and infinity which Zuaiter remembers loving as a child when she first visited Gaza with her mom, has become more like a prison wall these days for Gaza, a place of no escape since October 7th, 2023.

Likewise, the escape of those like Ahmed who were lucky enough to leave Gaza for other countries is now a life sentence of self-imposed exile, particularly since the latest conflict between Hamas and Israel. Not being able to belong to your own country of origin and yet never feeling completely at home in your adopted land, the list of displacement goes on and on. And Yalla Parkour is a brilliant example of just how deeply within the story a documentary can take us, into the shoes of those we may think of as ‘The Other’, but who are really just like us. In fact, it’s all these incredibly complex and contrasting points through which Yalla Parkour offers up a true insight into the existence of the Palestinian people, both in their homeland and throughout the diaspora.

Image copyright: PK Gaza