Gaza Surf Club at Hyde Park Picture House
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor“When I’m in the sea I feel happy and free”.
At its core, surfing represents a connection to nature, an escape from the structures of modern life and a chance to attune the body to something more elemental. Nowhere has that been more true than in the case of the surfers riding the waves of the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza.
Filmed between 2012 and 2016, Gaza Surf Club was created when this kind of escape was still possible, following two surfers: a 23-year-old man who dreams of training in Hawaii and a teenage girl who must give up the sport as she progresses towards adulthood. The film delivers all of the rush and energy, salt-sprayed action shots and graceful motion we’ve come to expect of surf movies, contrasted with the bracing, intimate details of life in Gaza.