Samouni Road
with Stefano Savona
Words by
Mudar Al-Khufash
Film Stills
Courtesy of the artist
When Stefano Savona met Fuad Samouni for the first time, it was just 5 days ago, that Fuad had lost his dad, his younger brother, and 48 other members of his extended family. Samouni family’s tragic case was circulating around, bringing Savona as well as many other journalists to Zeitoun district in the southern part of Gaza. The quiet farming community was rendered flat by the Israeli Army during the bloody 2009 Gaza war. The way Fuad was telling what had happened, felt like a lesson Savona was witnessing on how to tell a story. “ He was teaching me how you can tell a story. He was telling me the story of each single olive tree, it felt like a lecture,” Savona Said when we met him during the Arab Film festival Berlin. He was struck by Fuad’s storytelling talents, but also by the human devastation the war has left behind. He understood then, in order to tell the story of what had happened (and still happening) in Gaza, snapshot photos he was taking would be inadequate. “ You can’t just add numbers, and believe this is effective,” Savona explains. Feeling especially connected to the family, and their specific case, he had a naturalistic human urge to tell their story and tell it greatly. It eventually took 10 years of his life to accomplish this task he has given himself.
“ You can’t just add numbers, and believe this is effective.”
He decided to stay in Gaza and be around the family of Attia Samouni who was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers at the age of 32. His wife and children, Fuad, Faraj, Amal, and their two younger brothers are at the center of the film. He spent a month getting closer to them, interviewing them on camera, and capturing their daily lives. They opened up to Savona and trusted him. It installed in him more determination to show the humanity and individuality of each one of them “ The more I knew about the area, about their deceased father and uncle, the more I had to find an effective way to tell their story“ he said, „to differentiate between each and every one of them.” But a month after he left Gaza, Savona wasn’t convinced the footage he took was enough. In order to have a conclusive picture of the family and the tragedy that fell upon them, he felt he needed to find a way, to meet them before the war at a time of peace.
“ The more I knew about the area, about their deceased father and uncle, the more I had to find an effective way to tell their story, to differentiate between each and every one of them.”
In 2010, one year later, Savona got invited to Faraj’s wedding, he rushed packing to Egypt and smuggled himself to Gaza through the infamous underground tunnels, the only way in, because the borders were closed. He stayed there for another two months. During that period, and as he was spending time preparing for the wedding, together with the family, a lot of new information came to light, that’s when the idea imposed itself, to start a reconstruction mission using computer 3D modeling.
As a trained archaeologist, putting together a real archeological survey is nothing foreign to him: “It was contemporary archaeology but archaeology nevertheless.” He dug through the piles of rubble, searching for details to support their stories, and help build as much accurate picture as possible “of course I had to understand their systems and their ideologies, but I also had to reconstruct the physical neighborhood for the movie.” He supported his reconstruction survey with cross-checked documentation sources: the testimonies of the Samouni family, members of the International Red Cross and the findings of an Israeli army’s investigation commission. The result is a realistic and intimate animated representation of the deceased family members, the ones who survived, and their daily life before the war. He also used a third image type, a very realistic reconstruction of an areal IDF drone footage that struck a missile at the house where 21 family members were ordered into by Israeli soldiers on the ground.
Not the easiest of animation choice, Savona went for an animation style based on Cayon Etching technic, executed by illustrator Simone Massi. The procedure starts with a completely black inked paper surface. Through a succession of etched lines, black ink is removed revealing the white underneath and creating outlines and light, stemming contrasting shapes that convince the image. Dark, minimalistic yet very detailed, and realistic, appropriate for the topic at hand. For the 15 minutes animation in the film, it took 19,000 illustrated images
The films’ narrative follows the sequence of stories leading to the day of the attack, jumping between real footage and animations and between different time periods. It starts with a scene of Amal- who miraculously survived the attack - sitting close to a newly planted lemon tree. She recalls memories of her dad, and her younger brother Ahmad from before the war (both were killed in the attack). “I don’t know how to tell stories,” she responds to a question. She plays with her hairband and covers her eyes, in that second, the film shifts into the past, with an animated scene of Amal and her brother Ahmad rushing in the rain through farm fields to deliver lunch to her dad, uncle and her brothers who waited impatiently under an olive tree where they were working.
Samouni Road is a timeless, nonpartisan documentary film, giving voice to those who are voiceless. A universal story of human loss in the aftermath of war.
Samouni Road
with Stefano Savona
Words by
Mudar Al-Khufash
Film Stills
Courtesy of the artist
When Stefano Savona met Fuad Samouni for the first time, it was just 5 days ago, that Fuad had lost his dad, his younger brother, and 48 other members of his extended family. Samouni family’s tragic case was circulating around, bringing Savona as well as many other journalists to Zeitoun district in the southern part of Gaza. The quiet farming community was rendered flat by the Israeli Army during the bloody 2009 Gaza war. The way Fuad was telling what had happened, felt like a lesson Savona was witnessing on how to tell a story. “ He was teaching me how you can tell a story. He was telling me the story of each single olive tree, it felt like a lecture,” Savona Said when we met him during the Arab Film festival Berlin. He was struck by Fuad’s storytelling talents, but also by the human devastation the war has left behind. He understood then, in order to tell the story of what had happened (and still happening) in Gaza, snapshot photos he was taking would be inadequate. “ You can’t just add numbers, and believe this is effective,” Savona explains. Feeling especially connected to the family, and their specific case, he had a naturalistic human urge to tell their story and tell it greatly. It eventually took 10 years of his life to accomplish this task he has given himself.
“ You can’t just add numbers, and believe this is effective.”
He decided to stay in Gaza and be around the family of Attia Samouni who was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers at the age of 32. His wife and children, Fuad, Faraj, Amal, and their two younger brothers are at the center of the film. He spent a month getting closer to them, interviewing them on camera, and capturing their daily lives. They opened up to Savona and trusted him. It installed in him more determination to show the humanity and individuality of each one of them “ The more I knew about the area, about their deceased father and uncle, the more I had to find an effective way to tell their story“ he said, „to differentiate between each and every one of them.” But a month after he left Gaza, Savona wasn’t convinced the footage he took was enough. In order to have a conclusive picture of the family and the tragedy that fell upon them, he felt he needed to find a way, to meet them before the war at a time of peace.
“ The more I knew about the area, about their deceased father and uncle, the more I had to find an effective way to tell their story, to differentiate between each and every one of them.”
In 2010, one year later, Savona got invited to Faraj’s wedding, he rushed packing to Egypt and smuggled himself to Gaza through the infamous underground tunnels, the only way in, because the borders were closed. He stayed there for another two months. During that period, and as he was spending time preparing for the wedding, together with the family, a lot of new information came to light, that’s when the idea imposed itself, to start a reconstruction mission using computer 3D modeling.
As a trained archaeologist, putting together a real archeological survey is nothing foreign to him: “It was contemporary archaeology but archaeology nevertheless.” He dug through the piles of rubble, searching for details to support their stories, and help build as much accurate picture as possible “of course I had to understand their systems and their ideologies, but I also had to reconstruct the physical neighborhood for the movie.” He supported his reconstruction survey with cross-checked documentation sources: the testimonies of the Samouni family, members of the International Red Cross and the findings of an Israeli army’s investigation commission. The result is a realistic and intimate animated representation of the deceased family members, the ones who survived, and their daily life before the war. He also used a third image type, a very realistic reconstruction of an areal IDF drone footage that struck a missile at the house where 21 family members were ordered into by Israeli soldiers on the ground.
Not the easiest of animation choice, Savona went for an animation style based on Cayon Etching technic, executed by illustrator Simone Massi. The procedure starts with a completely black inked paper surface. Through a succession of etched lines, black ink is removed revealing the white underneath and creating outlines and light, stemming contrasting shapes that convince the image. Dark, minimalistic yet very detailed, and realistic, appropriate for the topic at hand. For the 15 minutes animation in the film, it took 19,000 illustrated images
The films’ narrative follows the sequence of stories leading to the day of the attack, jumping between real footage and animations and between different time periods. It starts with a scene of Amal- who miraculously survived the attack - sitting close to a newly planted lemon tree. She recalls memories of her dad, and her younger brother Ahmad from before the war (both were killed in the attack). “I don’t know how to tell stories,” she responds to a question. She plays with her hairband and covers her eyes, in that second, the film shifts into the past, with an animated scene of Amal and her brother Ahmad rushing in the rain through farm fields to deliver lunch to her dad, uncle and her brothers who waited impatiently under an olive tree where they were working.
Samouni Road is a timeless, nonpartisan documentary film, giving voice to those who are voiceless. A universal story of human loss in the aftermath of war.
