“Inside Gaza” Documentary Screening and Journalist Panel

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Inside Gaza is a powerful documentary offering a rare firsthand account of the war in Gaza, told by journalists who lived and reported from inside the conflict. Following the screening, join us for a discussion with director and journalist Hélène Lam Trong (Prix Albert Londres 2023); producer and journalist Yann Ollivier; Jonathan Dagher, Head of the RSF Middle East Desk; and protagonists of the film Mahmud Hams and Belal Al-Sabbagh.

Inside Gaza
dir. Hélène Lam Trong
72min

Featuring previously unseen footage and testimony from reporters Mai Yaghi and Adel Zaanoun, as well as photojournalists Mahmud Hams and Mohammed Abed, Inside Gaza "does not presume to explain the conflict, but rather to show that reporters are risking their lives so the public can continue to have access to independent and accurate information," stresses the director. The four journalists, veteran reporters who have worked for AFP for a long time, explain the extreme difficulty of working in a war-ravaged territory, where they must also protect their families.

In the spring of 2024, all AFP reporters working in the territory were evacuated along with their families. Since then, the Agency has relied on Palestinian freelancers who stayed on the ground, and who continue to document the reality of war in a territory that has been off-limits to the international press since the conflict started.

Panelists

Discussion to be moderated by Marie Doezema, Senior Special Projects Manager at the Columbia Global Paris Center.

Hélène Lam Trong is a French documentary filmmaker. Her 2023 documentary Daech, les enfants fantômes (ISIS, the Ghost Children) earned her the Albert Londres Prize for an audio-visual work. Independent since 2018, she worked for several years at Radio France then at France télévisions. In 2024, she directed Raqqa, l'ombre de Daech.

Yann Ollivier is a French-German film author and producer. After 20 years as a journalist and international correspondent in Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Strasbourg for The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, Yann has launched in 2021 the documentary production branch of AFP Group, FACTSTORY DOCS, producing factual documentaries that go beyond the headlines, with a strong emphasis on current affairs, geopolitics, environment, history and society. Recent coproductions: Vasa the Ghost Ship (ARTE/SVT 2023, 2×52′), Everyone’s Business (ARTE/Public Sénat 2024, 95′), Eddy Merckx, Race of a Champion (2025, 90’ and 55’, RTBF/ARTE/VRT).

Jonathan Dagher is a journalist, the head of Reporters sans frontières Middle East Desk, and producer at the Lebanese independent online media platform Megaphone News. He is a contributing writer for Zenith Magazine’s Lebanon Chronicles, and a producer on the Shabaket el Meem podcast with the Arab Institute for Women.

Mahmud Hams is a Palestinian photojournalist and academic from Gaza. He has worked with Agence France-Presse since 2003 and has received numerous distinguished international awards, including the 25th Bayeux-Calvados War Correspondents Prize and a Visa d’Or.

Belal Al-Sabbagh is a Palestinian video reporter from Gaza, who has worked as a videographer since 1995 for local television, various institutions, and Agence France-Presse, which he joined in 2017. In September 2024, he was shortlisted for the prestigious Bayeux Award for War Correspondents.

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This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.

Reid Hall, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination are not responsible for the views and opinions expressed by their speakers and guests.