CrossFireArabia
I began with the larger picture: The place, the screen, the children, the details of the festival.
Then I stopped looking at the whole scene.
The faces remained.
I wasn’t looking for a particular expression. I was watching what happens when a film reaches a child — the concentration, the pause, the small changes that happen without asking to be noticed.
This is part of why I love cinema.
A film does not end when the image disappears. Sometimes it continues in the person watching it, quietly, without explanation.
Behind the camera, I found myself watching that happen.
I was no longer photographing the film, or even the festival.
I was photographing the act of watching.
A gaze following the screen. A sudden smile. A face absorbed in something beyond the frame.
Nothing dramatic.
Just a child, watching a film.
And perhaps that is exactly what made me stop.
It happened in Gaza.
