Once Upon a Time in Gaza Review: Cinema as Lifeline in a Blockaded Land

“Once Upon a Time in Gaza” immediately immerses the viewer in the granular realities of Gaza City circa 2007, a landscape defined more by the strictures of blockade than by any idyllic coastal aspiration. The narrative, in its initial phase, anchors itself to the street-level experiences of its protagonists, forging a compelling study of existence within a pressure cooker.

We meet Osama (Majd Eid), a falafel shop owner whose entrepreneurial spirit extends into the precarious domain of illicit painkiller distribution—a portrayal that sidesteps easy judgment, instead highlighting the resourcefulness bred by constraint. Eid embodies Osama with a tough exterior that nonetheless allows glimpses of a protective, almost paternal, connection.

His foil and reluctant associate is the younger Yahya (Nader Abd Alhay), a more visibly apprehensive soul whose quiet yearning for a life beyond the confines of Gaza speaks volumes about the psychological toll of the environment. Their partnership, born of necessity and conducted through the ingenious if desperate method of drug concealment in falafel sandwiches, becomes a microcosm of survival tactics in an economy of scarcity.

This depiction of the everyday hustle, while rooted in Gaza’s specific geopolitical predicament, finds echoes in narratives of marginalized communities globally, where ingenuity is often the last currency. The fragile equilibrium of their world is threatened by Abou Sami (Ramzi Maqdisi), a corrupt police officer whose demands for informants exemplify the internal erosions of authority within a besieged territory.

The film deftly weaves the ambient political tension into the characters’ lives—newsprint wrapping food, televised reports murmuring in the background—making the external conflict an undeniable texture of private existence, leading inexorably to a violent rupture that reshapes Yahya’s world.

Reel Life, Real Life: The Camera as Witness and Metaphor

A two-year narrative leap catapults Yahya, and the audience, into 2009, a period shadowed by further military operations and the deep scars of personal trauma from Osama’s fate. It is here that “Once Upon a Time in Gaza” introduces its most potent metaphorical layer: Yahya, now a changed man, is unexpectedly cast in “The Rebel,” a feature film heralded as Gaza’s first foray into the action genre, supported by the Ministry of Culture.

His casting, predicated on a resemblance to a valorized militant figure, thrusts him into the role of a “national symbol,” a manufactured hero. This film-within-a-film device, a familiar trope in international cinema, acquires a unique charge in this setting. The production of “The Rebel” is depicted with a strain of dark, almost farcical humor; the crew’s reliance on real weaponry due to budgetary impossibilities transforms the act of make-believe into something far more precarious.

This self-conscious portrayal of filmmaking under duress speaks to a broader tradition of artistic creation in conflict zones, where the line between performance and peril can become alarmingly thin. The reappearance of Abou Sami, now a major, onto this very film set, intent on safeguarding his secrets, further complicates Yahya’s journey.

His internal landscape—a battleground of grief, a nascent desire for retribution, and the awkward assumption of an actor’s persona—becomes the film’s emotional core. The scenario forces a confrontation not just with an external antagonist but with the very nature of representation: can playing a hero provide a path to actual agency or justice?

Framing Defiance: Aesthetics and Meaning in Gazan Storytelling

The Nasser brothers, through “Once Upon a Time in Gaza,” assert that the act of creating cinema within such a constrained and charged environment is, in itself, a significant gesture. The film doesn’t just tell a story; it actively interrogates how stories are told, and by whom, especially when reality itself is so fiercely contested. The interplay between the raw, lived experiences of Gazans and the somewhat embellished, heroic narrative of “The Rebel” provides a rich ground for exploring truth and artifice.

Cinematographer Christophe Graillot’s lens captures Gaza with a textured sensibility, often employing moody, nocturnal palettes that enhance the thriller undertones, while dynamic camera movements and carefully composed mirror shots can suggest deeper psychological states or hidden realities of the characters.

This visual storytelling finds a powerful partner in Amine Bouhafa’s score, which skillfully melds Middle Eastern inflections with the evocative pull of Morricone-esque trumpet laments, underscoring both the cultural specificity and the universally understood emotional beats of suspense or sorrow. The film’s structure, possibly employing parallels between its opening and closing sequences, encourages a re-evaluation of the events witnessed.

Even a seemingly simple joke, like one recounted about a well-hidden elephant, can function as a key to the film’s distinctive voice—a way of acknowledging overwhelming realities with a subtle, resilient humor, making “Once Upon a Time in Gaza” a complex statement on survival, memory, and the enduring need to shape one’s own narrative.

Once Upon a Time in Gaza premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2025.

Full Credits

Directors: Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser

Writers: Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser

Producers: Rani Massalha, Marie Legrand, Muriel Merlin, Rashid Abdelhamid

Cast: Nader Abd Alhay, Majd Eid, Ramzi Maqdisi, Is’haq Elias

Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Christophe Graillot

Editor: Sophie Reine

Composer: Amine Bouhafa