“Once Upon a Time in Gaza,” a moving and “complex” film about the “price of survival”

“ Once Upon a Time in Gaza is far from being your average crime fiction: it is a complex, rich and introspective reflection on identity, resistance and the price of survival,” praises the Emirati daily The National . Winner of the Best Director Award in the Un Certain Regard section at the last Cannes Film Festival , the third feature film by brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser plays with the codes of the spaghetti western to present the characters of Yahya (Nader Abd Alhay), a student, and Osama (Majd Eid), a kind-hearted drug dealer. The former ends up working in the latter's falafel shop, and a crooked police officer, Abu Sami (Ramzi Maqdisi), comes to pick a fight with them – thus sketching out a trio in the style of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

With poetry and sometimes dark humor, the two Gazan filmmakers unfold an engaging comedy, which reveals the reality of the daily lives of Gazans. Tarzan Nasser told the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat that the decision to start the plot in 2007 “was not arbitrary,” as it places the action in the aftermath of Hamas’s election to the 2006 legislative elections. The population of the enclave, which includes many descendants of Palestinians displaced from the Nakba (1948) , was then sanctioned by Israel, which imposed an unprecedented land and air blockade, with serious consequences.

Trapped in Gaza, which has become an open-air prison, Yahya and Ousama struggle to survive as life rapidly deteriorates on all levels. For example, Yahya is denied permission by Israeli authorities, without explanation, to leave the country to attend his sister's wedding in Jerusalem. The duo scrapes a living by selling pills, hidden in falafel sandwiches, among other things.

“The characters portrayed on screen are eager to live their lives with dignity. They want to achieve their dreams but are confronted with harsh realities that prevent them from doing so. However, they never resign themselves to waiting for death and will continue to move forward despite all the obstacles that stand in their way,” explains The National. This despite being “confined to suffocating, dark and filthy corners” throughout the film, adds Al-Araby Al-Jadid , another pan-Arab daily, which applauds a “moving and exciting” film.

Born in 1988 in Gaza, the two twin directors left the territory in 2012 to pursue their careers in Jordan and France, as the Israeli blockade and Hamas made film production very difficult. Their family, however, remains in Gaza today, under the violent bombardment that Israel is carrying out again after breaking a fragile ceasefire in March 2025 .

For this third feature film, the Nasser brothers recreated Gaza's alleyways in Jordan, which in reality are now mostly destroyed, to bring to life their two heroes, whose "journey turns into a confrontation with corruption, in a story mixing bitterness and sarcasm", when Osama is threatened by Abu Sami, details Al-Jazeera .

The film excels in its use of imagery. The main plot is overlaid with news footage of heavy Israeli bombardments, as is Donald Trump's speech, which he claimed last February would turn Gaza into "the Riviera of the Middle East." The cynicism of this speech is highlighted in other scenes in the film.

This comedy-thriller takes a turn when Yahya is recruited to film an action film produced by the Hamas Ministry of Culture, glorifying a “martyr.” According to The National , this film within the film is inspired by a real production that Hamas co-financed and which it screened in the enclave in 2009: Imad Aqel, named after a Hamas fighter killed by Israeli soldiers in 1993. The Nasser brothers appropriate this film to deliver a critique on the instrumentalization of images and cinema. Thus, “a seemingly simple story transforms into something decidedly more complex,” underlines the Emirati daily.

And Once Upon a Time in Gaza, particularly through the character of the police officer, "takes a harsh look at the corruption and venal killers who rise to power. Even when these powers do care about culture, it's only for propaganda purposes, to ensure their survival" and their own interests, believes Al-Araby Al-Jadid.