Israel 2006, 60 min, SDA Trabelsi Production
by Ayelet Heller
Gaza's Strawberry Fields
Palestinian farmers yearning for independence and freedom on the backdrop of the fruit industry in the Gaza strip in 2006 right before Hamas came to power. A story about hope, frustration, occupation, globalization and politics, and at its center there's this small strawberry. It was marketed and sold in Europe by an Israeli company as Palestinian produce to avoid BDS. That was the only time that Israel recognized a Palestinian entity.Israel sold Gazan farmers the strawberry mother plant to be cultivated in the fields of Beit Lahiya and produce the brilliant red fruit. Before 1967 the land was full of citrus plants, but after Israel’s occupation controlling the water supply made it extremely expensive for the Gazan farmers to grow and when Israel offered them the strawberry in higher exchange for their citrus plants, they had no choice but to accept.
In 2006, Israeli filmmaker Ayelet Heller and her Gazan crew document the agricultural cycle of the fruit and the political events directly affecting the lives of the farmers cultivating those berries. From the strawberry fields of Beit Lahiya we witness the Disengagement, the withdrawal of the Israeli Army from Gaza and its re-entrance after two months, the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections and the closure of the strip that followed. In December, the strawberry fields became a battlefield and the site of a vicious cycle of violence.
Out of these green fields, red fruits, blue skies and the sea, emerges a pastoral image of farmers earning their livelihood by working the land. But in Gaza it is not the laws of nature that rule, but those of the occupation.
Winner of Best Script - "In the Spirit of Freedom" Competition 2005, Jerusalem FF, Hot Docs, Visions du Reel, Documenta Madrid, Edinburgh International FF