Filmmaker Areeb Zuaiter remembers her mother at the beach in #Gaza. She remembers her smile meeting the sea while dancing to the waves’ rhythm. She was only four years old at that time, but she has been hunting that memory ever since.

After her mother’s passing in 2012, Areeb’s nostalgia for her homeland resurfaces when she sees a video of Gaza’s young men practising #parkour amid explosions. She decides to reconnect with Ahmed, one of the athletes in the video, and that has turned into a spectacular documentary, exploring both parkour sites and symbols of Palestinian spirit.

Dreams of a better life

She contacts Ahmed through Messenger. She lives in the US, and he is in Gaza. He says that he is a filmmaker as well because he has made a wide range of video clips from the time when he and a gang of friends were training parkour in the dunes of Gaza, a graveyard, and a bombed shopping mall. That was back in 2015. A couple of guys left the Gaza Strip for Sweden, but Ahmed is still there.

The correspondence continues over a span of time. Areeb dreams of seeing Gaza, but she is reluctant actually to go there, so she learns about the place through his filming of their training sessions. What comes out of it is a rather special documentary describing life in Gaza without actually being there, but it works. In an original way, the documentary conveys the Palestinian feeling of the tight barrier around Gaza. As a Palestinian in exile, Areeb would be able to go there physically, but to a much lesser extent mentally because she has distanced herself by living abroad. And Ahmed, being connected to Gaza deeply in his soul, dreams of a better life, a life with a future, and he sees parkour as a tool to leave the harsh daily conditions of Gaza behind forever.

Against all odds, the teenage boys are building a better future for themselves in the ruins of Gaza

«Our videos are the only way for the world to see us,» he says. «That might give us an invitation to go abroad. To see the world and participate in competitions.»

She starts wondering what is left. Now is 2024, and the Israeli war on Gaza takes its daily toll. Are those parkour guys with the young smiles still alive? Do you remember, Mom? she asks herself. She realises that she always ran away, war after war, running away from the news features. Ahmed wanted to show it to the outside world, but she realises she is not part of it. She is «one of us», as Ahmed puts it. And still, she isn’t.

A story of identity

This is a profoundly moving story. Areeb experiences Gaza through Ahmed’s eyes; this way, she sees the harsh reality that contrasts sharply with her own life in the US and her mother’s legacy. The beauty of Gaza is still present somewhere in the back of her mind, but it is hard to mobilise as she witnesses Ahmed’s deep desire to escape the place that should be a homeland for both of them. She becomes overwhelmed with deep, conflicting feelings of guilt, and their video correspondence becomes a quest to reclaim memories and, at the same time, an effort to define their identity. Yalla Parkour offers a last glimpse of pre-October 7th Gaza, and after the war, it will stand as an important statement amid all the thoughts about what will come.

In the numerous video clips, we get to know Ahmed and the guys as experts «in turning pain into happiness», as Areeb remarks at some stage. She notices the smiles on the boys’ faces when they turn a graveyard into a playground. They smile and laugh when they do triple backflips off the bombed #Rafah airport and land on their necks. It is a self-inflicted pain, and it serves a deeper purpose. Against all odds, the teenage boys are building a better future for themselves in the ruins of Gaza, and that is an extremely important and beautiful message.

It is a documentary that is hard to watch, and taking into consideration the severe devastation Gaza has undergone since October 7th only makes it more difficult. Ahmed actually managed to leave Gaza for Sweden before the war, but that only makes his personal desire of «leaving before it is too late» all the more bittersweet. Because after him, many youngsters like him live in the rubble of their dreams and still do their utmost to survive by building their identity on the ruins.