Berlin-based Arthood Entertainment has taken international sales rights to Yalla Parkour, a documentary filmed in Gaza before the recent war, which is set to play in Panorama at the Berlinale next week.
It marks the feature directorial debut of US-based Palestinian filmmaker Areeb Zuaiter and follows parkour athlete Ahmed Matar through Gaza’s devasted landscape.
The film premiered at Doc NYC in November, winning the international competition grand jury prize, before playing at Red Sea. It will receive its European premiere in Berlin on February 19.
Produced by Basel Mawlawi of Malmo-based Kinana Films, the feature is a Sweden-Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Palestine co-production with support from Film i Skane, the Swedish Film Institute, the Doha Film Institute, Red Sea Fund, The City of Malmö and FilmCentrum Syd.
Filmed over a decade, it began in 2015 when Zuaiter saw online videos of parkour athletes performing in Gaza. Looking to reconnect with her roots after years of living in the US and the death of her Palestinian mother, she travelled to the wartorn region and began to build a bond with Matar.
The documentary is narrated by Zuaiter as if she is speaking with her deceased mother and records Matar’s parkour stunts, which involve backflips off dunes, dangerous jumps from one structure to another and hanging precariously off the edge of a tall building.
Zuaiter is also head of the programming department for the Amman International Film Festival while Matar has since relocated to Sweden.
Nesligül Satır, sales and acquisitions manager at Arthood Entertainment, said: “From the moment we saw Yalla Parkour, we knew this was a story that needed to be shared with the world. Areeb Zuaiter captures the raw energy of parkour and the resilience of Palestinian youth in a way that feels both urgent and deeply human.”
Further titles on Arthood’s EFM slate include Hijamat by Nader Saeivar, whose most recent film The Witness premiered at Venice last year; Soft Leaves by Belgian-Japanese filmmaker Miwako Van Weyenberg, which premiered in competition at Rotterdam last week; and Elmar Imanov’s The Kiss Of The Grasshopper, which is set to world premiere in the Forum section of the Berlinale.
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