Young Freud In Gaza in Leonardo July

Young Freud In Gaza
by PeÅ Holmquist and Suzanna Khardalian, Directors
Icarus Films, Brooklyn, NY, 2008/9
58 mins., DVD, color
DVD, $375
Distributor address: http://www.IcarusFilms.com.

Reviewed by Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome (Italy)
Professor of Economics Università Europea di Roma

giuseppe.pennisi@gmail.com

Young Freud in Gaza is a timely DVD to watch. It is halfway between a documentary and a fiction short movie. Through the life of Ayed, a young psychotherapist for the Palestinian Authority’s Clinic of Mental Health, it shows the changes in life in Gaza Strip since 2004 to 2008. The movie was filmed during 2006-2008, e-g- after the electoral victory of Hamas and Hamas’ take-over of full power in the Strip. However, it starts before the 2005 elections and shows what life in Gaza was at the turn of the 21st Century. Ayed was a recently graduate psychotherapist and already then felt that “Gaza need a million of psychologists” as, although in more apparent than real peace, the populace lived like in a cage. Ayed’s consultation were with a variety of patients, both males and females, adult and children, either in his office or in house calls: then, the main issues had to with a vast gamut of anxiety, depression and stress.

After Hamas’ take-over and an increasing struggle both between Hamas and Fatah and with Israel, the backdrop becomes very violent with street fights, bombing, Israeli missile attacks and the constant overhead presence of a surveillance dirigible. Ayed is called to an ever expanding more difficult tasks: to provide assistance to young wives, mothers, and children under frequent shelling while a growing number of men desire to became martyrs through suicide attacks. We see him training young wives and mothers in deep-breathing exercises to calm anxiety, counseling young Hamas and Fatah militants through meditation techniques, and leading children in group therapy sessions in which they discuss their reaction to the death of siblings and draw pictures to deal with their memory. As time goes, Ayed begins to doubts his own capability to deal with the tasks he has. There is only a way out to come to grips with his own anxiety and emotions: to walk to the beach and to watch the immensity of the sea.

Young Freud in Gaza has been awarded several prizes at the 2009 New York Jewish Film Festival, the 2008 Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival, the Nordisk Panorama Film Festival, and the Dubay 2008 Middle East International Film Festival. To be appreciated both by the New York Jewish Film Festival and by Middle Eastern Festivals is a clear indication of the non-partisan approach to the issue. Both Hamas and Fatah militants – and even the Israelis in the background – are seen with sympathy and piety; they are part of much deeper and much wider struggle over which they have no control.

It is, no doubt, an engrossing probing movie that provides a devastating picture of the Middle East situation. Technically is very professionally produced even though the many men and women, adults and children we see in the movie (including the young Palestinian in the role of Ayed) are rigorously non-professional.

It may be a useful discussion tool for classes and seminars in Middle East Studies.

Last Updated 1 July, 2009

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