German documentary 'Gaza Surf Club' to screen at NVIC

CAIRO – 29 November 2017: The German documentary "Gaza Surf Club" will screen at the NVIC - Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo on Sunday, December 3.

This documentary follows a group of youth living in the Gaza Strip; they aim to escape the harshness of their daily life by taking up surfing on the shores. Trapped between Israel and Hamas, the youth of Gaza wish for freedom but find themselves suffocated in what they consider the ‘world’s largest open-air prison’. Only on the waves of Gaza’s beach do they find freedom, hope and meaning in their lives.

Filmmakers Philip Gnadt and Mickey Yamine focus on two people in particular; 23 year old Ibrahim Arafat, who resists his family’s urging that he be another fisherman to follow his dream of becoming a professional surfer in Hawaii, and Sabah Abu Ghanem, a 15 year old girl who is forced by the religious fundamentalist laws of Gaza to cover her body up, preventing her from surfing, an act she loved so much as a child. "Gaza Surf Club" is a film that goes beyond what surfing is and more as to what it represents to those trapped by war and oppression.

Premiering on September 9, 2016 at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film was nominated for the Festival’s ‘People's Choice Award’.