Now in its 64th year, the festival will feature 288 films from 59 countries across 12 days.
Italian filmmaker Marco De Stefanis will bring his latest documentary, ‘Waiting for Giraffes’, to Sydney screens in the first week of the festival.
Released in 2016, the documentary provides a poignant insight into life in Palestine’s only zoo, and the tireless efforts of its workers to maintain its survival in an environment where politics is everything.
Fourteen times smaller than Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, Qalqilya Zoo covers an area of 4.9 acres in the city of Qalqilya.
Sitting on the western side of the West Bank and straddling the border with Israel, it’s also the world’s only zoo in occupied territory.
Due to its location and the tense political climate surrounding it, Qalqilya Zoo struggles to operate efficiently, and every day presents a new challenge.
The zoo was established in 1986, a year before the area was struck by the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel.
In 1991, the zoo received two giraffes from South Africa and people came from far and wide to catch a glimpse of the graceful creatures.
In 2000, when the second intifada broke out, the intensity and violence of the fighting was unprecedented.
Qalqilya was at the heart of the conflict, and became riddled with gunshots on a daily basis.
When a gunfight unfolded near the zoo one night, the unfamiliar sounds sent the giraffes into a state of panic.
Amid the chaos, the male giraffe ran into a pole and fell to the ground unconscious.
The next day, Brownie was found dead; the distance between a giraffe’s head and heart is so great that the blood pressure can get too high over an extended period of time lying down, and the brain can explode.
Ruti, Brownie’s pregnant partner, miscarried ten days later.
Having lost her partner and unborn child, Ruti refused to eat and eventually died of starvation.
Since the zoo lost two of its most beloved creatures, it has failed to house new giraffes.
The giraffes weren’t the only casualties of the conflict, and the zoo also lost three zebras after they inhaled tear gas used to break up a demonstration at a nearby school.
The zoo, which provides an oasis for the community and an opportunity to see the world’s animals, has also become a victim of the unstable political climate.
Over the years, it has fallen into a state of degradation, becoming outdated, overcrowded and broke.
De Stefanis’ film follows dedicated vet, Dr Sami, in his quest to return the zoo to its former state and gain international support and recognition in return.
By improving the standards of his zoo, Dr Sami hopes to gain entry in the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA), which will in turn allow the zoo to advance and maybe even house giraffes in the future.
Dr Sami can’t resurrect the zoo on his own, and the film explores his relationship with his Israeli counterparts at the Jerusalem zoo, as they extend a helping hand across the border to Qalqilya.
De Stefanis captures Dr Sami’s undying determination to redeem the zoo against all the odds and bring happiness to both his people and his beloved animals.
It was through Amelia Thomas’ novel The Zoo on the Road to Nablus: A Story of Survival from the West Bank, that De Stefanis learned of Dr Sami’s courageous work in the name of Qalqilya Zoo.
“[Dr Sami] was risking his life during the curfew imposed by the Israeli army to bring food and medical care to the animals in the zoo,” De Stefanis said.
Fascinated by Dr Sami’s devotion, De Stefanis packed his bags and jumped on a plane to the Middle East, camera in hand.
“The first thing that caught my attention was that Qalqilya is a city surrounded for almost its entire perimeter by the Israeli wall,” the director explained.
“There’s only one open access to the city and it can be closed at the discretion of the Israeli Defence Force at any time.”
The award-winning filmmaker soon came to look at the situation metaphorically as a “zoo within a zoo”.
De Stefanis began filming in 2010 and travelled to Qalqilya around three times a year for five years to track the zoo’s progress.
As can be expected in such a politically tense region, each and every visit wasn’t without its challenges, including lengthy security checks by Israeli forces upon arrival and departure.
“Our luggage and equipment was thoroughly checked piece by piece and we were questioned continuously about our work and our relations with Palestinians in Qalqilya,” De Stefanis said.
“But, like all Palestinians, we eventually got used to it.”
While the film explores the daily obstacles that Palestinians face under the current circumstances, De Stefanis made a conscious effort not to explicitly address the city’s political situation, which he admits is much more complex than he had preconceived.
Another aspect which took De Stefanis by surprise was how well he managed to settle into a place which originally seemed worlds apart from his birthplace of Rome and his current home in the Netherlands.
“The sense of hospitality, the pride and the humour made me feel at home quite soon,” he recalled.
“This helped me look at the situation with different eyes.”
Through his film, De Stefanis hopes to portray Palestinians as something other than victims or criminals, and expose everything that comes between these two ends of the spectrum, depicting Qalqilya not as a refugee camp or prison, but as a provincial town of around 40,000 residents.
“The economical situation is difficult at the moment, but people try to go on with their lives like any of us,” he said.
“I hope that viewers will realise that the people in Qalqilya are more similar to us than we believe.
“And I hope that Dr Sami, a man who has a dream and who perseveres no matter what, without ever considering abandoning his quest or crying about his misfortunes, will be an example for many as he was for me.”
With the help of De Stefanis, Dr Sami has been able to share the story of his people and his zoo and move one step closer to a brighter future.
Who knows, it may even be a future in which giraffes return to Qalqilya.
