Yalla Parkour
In her relentless pursuit of a memory that reinforces her sense of belonging, Areeb crosses paths with Ahmad, a Parkour athlete in Gaza. Nostalgia meets with ambition, and the weight of a confined past meets with an unpredictable future.
Filmmaker Areeb Zuaiter was born in the Palestinian city of Nablus but left the country with her parents when she was still an infant, although the family made regular trips back home, including, on one occasion, a visit to the sandy shorelines of the Gaza coast. This intensely personal film connects those trips—and Areeb’s vivid and nostalgic memories—to a young parkour enthusiast in Gaza named Ahmed. Ahmed, together with his crew of close friends, acrobatically negotiates the parts of the city that have been reduced to ruins by the ongoing genocide that is a constant backdrop to Palestinian life. Areeba connects with Ahmed on social media, and as their relationship develops, she explores the landscape of her memories, through the eyes of her young friend. Beyond the power of its own narrative, Yalla Parkour offers a last glimpse of a pre-October 7th Gaza, the reality it documents now utterly destroyed.
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