“The Beauty of Gaza” by Yolande Zauberman
Screened in a Special Session at the Cannes Film Festival 2024.
Release Date: May 29
Synopsis
They were a fleeting vision in the night. I was told that one of them had walked from Gaza to Tel Aviv. In my mind, I called her The Beauty of Gaza.
Review
Does The Beauty of Gaza exist?
When Yolande Zauberman discovered in 2018 archival footage of a transgender woman rumored to have walked from Gaza to Tel Aviv on Hatnufa Street to escape persecution, the director decided to make a film about it.
Yolande Zauberman, an excellent documentarian known for “Would You Have Sex with an Arab?” and “M,” which addresses pedocriminality in the Bnei Brak community and was filmed in Yiddish, collected the confessions of five transgender women.
In “M,” there was already a mention of these women seen at night, leading difficult lives.
The last film of her trilogy shot at night, “The Beauty of Gaza” immerses us in the intimate history of these women who risked their lives to become who they are.
Lives Marked by Violence
“Danielle, for example, comes from the Palestinian territories,” the filmmaker explains. “She was kidnapped by men from the territories to punish her. The risk is always being recognized on a TikTok video, for example. She survived, and her mother told her, ‘I regret that they didn’t kill you.’ These women show us the price of freedom,” declares Yolande Zauberman.
Yolande Zauberman knows how to listen with empathy, and the women open up as the film progresses.
One of them wears a veil to assert who she is, another chases away men who look at her like a curious animal. All of them have suffered terrible violence since childhood and almost died because their family or friends did not accept them. One of them recounts being beaten and thrown at an Israeli military checkpoint to be made to look like a terrorist.
Taking refuge in Tel Aviv where they prostitute themselves, they sometimes try to reconnect with a “normal” life, far from the street.
One of them lived with an orthodox rabbi for several years before revealing her transition “to get rid of him,” she says. “Here, I can be myself; elsewhere, trans people are killed, thrown off roofs,” says another.
A documentary with light and hope
But there is also hope, communicated by the magnificent and luminous Talleen Abu Hanna, a well-known singer and actress, crowned Miss Trans Israel in 2016.
The color scheme, music, and cinematography of “The Beauty of Gaza” magnify these extraordinary women, honored this year at the Cannes Film Festival. The editing gives us the impression of their wandering lives and highlights their souls in the night.
Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez” main actress is played by the transgender woman Karla Sofía Gascón. The main character undergoes her transition in a clinic in Tel Aviv, operated on by an Israeli surgeon played by Mark Ivanir (a well-known Israeli actor, particularly for his appearance in the film Schindler’s List and in the series Away).
With TALLEEN ABU HANNA, ISRAELA, NADINE, DANIELLE, NATHALIE
BEFORE THE SCREENING, WITH TWO ACTRESSES, DIRECTOR & PRODUCER
Learn more: Cannes Film Festival
Trailer :
En savoir plus : Festival de Cannes
