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Khalil wanted to portray Gazans as people, not victims, persevering with Discovery title A Gaza Weekend as world events took a familiar turn.
Basil Khalil’s debut feature has taken art imitating life to an extreme. A Gaza Weekend is a comedy that follows the outbreak of a deadly virus, leaving Israel in lockdown and Gaza the safest place on earth, thanks to the Israeli blockade. Two-thirds of the way through his film’s shoot — in and around Haifa, Israel, which doubled for Gaza — the pandemic took grip and filming was shut down.
“We had bought all these masks and alcohol gel props, and then Covid hit. There were none left in the country but we had boxes and boxes,” recalls Khalil, whose film makes its world premiere on September 10 in TIFF’s Discovery section.
The production shut down for an entire year. Filming switched from Israel to Jordan, after Israel took a hard line against UK residents entering the country, which ruled out Khalil, the film’s producer Amina Dasmal and star Stephen Mangan, all UK-based, from returning to set.
Covid-19 was just one of the hurdles faced by Khalil as he tried to get his debut feature off...