To Shoot an Elephant

is a film portrait of Gaza under the Israeli embargo. Director Alberto Arce was embedded with the International Solidarity movement, one of the few aid organizations still operating in the area. We are given insight into everyday life in the region through a series of vignettes he filmed between December 25, 2008 and January 16, 2009, focusing particularly on the ambulance services that pick up the wounded and the dead (always referred to as "martyrs") from the streets. The aid workers are risking their own lives, too, because in contravention of the Geneva Convention, the Israeli forces shoot to kill. Although Mohammad Rujailah, the filmcrews' fixer, is credited as co-director, he is also one of the film's central figures. Calmly, but making no attempt to disguise his despair and rage, he calls the international community -- and by extension the audience -- to account. The film's title refers to "Shooting an Elephant," a 1936 essay by George Orwell in which he denounces colonial politics -- as the author does throughout his oeuvre. And just as in Orwell's historical fiction, presents broad political issues through a small cross-section of, in this case Palestinian, everyday life.