The upcoming screening will take place on December 3rd, and it will be followed by a Q&A with the director, moderated by director Sophie Fiennes.
When I watched Yolande Zauberman’s M in Locarno, in 2018, I remember thinking documentaries could be so powerful, because they push us to believe in things we thought unexplainable. We may not always like the road they take us on, but we can’t help feel more informed at the end of the journey. So I can only imagine how cool Zauberman’s The Belle of Gaza is. I’m only sorry I’ve yet to watch it, a personal shortcoming for sure.
It world premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, where it was screened in the Special Screenings section and competed for the L'Œil d'or and Queer Palm awards
On December 3rd, the documentary will screen at what has become my favorite cinema in London, the Ciné Lumière within the French Institute of the United Kingdom in South Kensington. With their eclectic mix of world cinema, the Ciné Lumière is really a hub for arts and culture and a short distance to travel to get one’s dose of great cinema for the week.
“They were a fleeting vision one night during the shooting of ‘M. Beautiful’. One of them told Selim Nassib in Arabic that she had walked from Gaza to become a transsexual in Tel Aviv. I called her ‘La Belle de Gaza’. With my camera, I looked for her everywhere.”
In her latest work, Yolande Zauberman (winner of the 2020 César award for Best Documentary Film with M) tries to track down a mysterious trans woman who allegedly walked from Gaza to Tel Aviv, thus evoking the ever-present question of displacement and the layers of oppression faced by trans people in some parts of the world.
The December 3rd screening will be the film’s UK premiere, and if you wish to watch it, here is the link to more info and tickets, on the IF’s website.