Mohammad Khrouwat: I Didn’t Portray Displacement… I Had Just Lived It

In the bid Sohab Al-Ard (“Companions of the Land”), Mohammad Khrouwat was not performing lines written connected paper. He stood earlier the camera carrying the representation of the camp, the odor of flour, and the value of 45 days helium spent successful Jabalia exile campy earlier leaving Gaza for Egypt.

He appeared successful lone 3 scenes. Yet they were capable to uncover that immoderate roles bash not necessitate acting — lone a bosom that is inactive bleeding.

Was determination a country wherever you felt you weren’t acting, but reliving thing idiosyncratic oregon familial? What happened wrong you astatine that moment?
The flour scene, specifically,” Khrouwat says. “The symptom of the onshore was contiguous successful each detail. I felt similar a vertebrate whose nest had been destroyed… and past destroyed each implicit again. That country gave maine a immense affectional space. I judge the last judgement belongs to the assemblage erstwhile they spot it.”

Did you consciousness the value of work — that you weren’t conscionable representing yourself, but the representation of an full people?

“Absolutely. Anything I contiguous done creation carries tremendous responsibility. The radical of Gaza are watching what we create. We are telling their story, speaking successful their name. This is not a passing quality — it’s the communicative of existent people
Were you acrophobic the enactment mightiness beryllium misunderstood oregon politically exploited extracurricular its humanitarian context?

“At first, yes. I wondered whether the bid could accidental much than what the satellite has already seen with its ain eyes. But successful our cause, it is intolerable for an creator to abstracted professionalism from humanity. If I had sensed adjacent 1 percent of distortion oregon exploitation, I would not person taken part.”

Was it hard to abstracted your trade arsenic an histrion from your emotions arsenic idiosyncratic watching his homeland reduced to a country of displacement?

“There is nary separation. This is our reality. Even now, arsenic we speak, the warfare has not ended for me. I americium inactive distant from my mother; I cannot adjacent odor her scent. People are inactive cold. They are inactive without homes. We are not done.”
After filming ended, did creation connection you catharsis — oregon did it reopen wounds you didn’t privation to touch?

“The wounds were ne'er closed to statesman with. Watching the episodes, I outcry astatine each scene. The warfare continues wrong us.”

If a young Palestinian presently surviving done displacement watches this series, what bash you anticipation they feel?

“I anticipation they consciousness hope. Without hope, we cannot spell on. Today, idiosyncratic mightiness illness implicit losing a pet. We suffer our homes, our land, our families — and we continue. We endure due to the fact that we person nary different choice.”

Does it symptom you to represent a unfortunate portion the satellite watches arsenic if it’s simply different show?

“Yes, it does. We emotion life. We person dreams and ambitions we privation to achieve. I americium a human
being — not a passing scene.”

Is creation present an enactment of resistance, oregon a documented grounds to an ongoing crime?

“It is both. Art is resistance. It is testimony. It is an archive of the occupation’s crimes. They are angered due to the fact that they recognize the powerfulness and power of art. Art is the connection of peoples — and that is wherefore they fearfulness it.”

Mohammad Khrouwat did not simply transportation a “bag of flour” earlier the camera. He carried the representation of hunger, the scent of the camp, and the longing of a lad who does not cognize erstwhile helium volition adjacent clasp his mother.

In Sohab Al-Ard, helium was not portraying displacement — helium was proving that displacement is not a scripted scene, but a lived fate.
And erstwhile the occurrence ends and the lights fade, 1 question remains suspended earlier the world:
How galore times indispensable symptom beryllium performed earlier it is yet believed?

Interview by Aliaa Al-Hawari