Curator's note: The posters in the Gazawood series were awarded first prize in the A. M. Qattan Foundation's 2010 "Young Artists of the Year Award"__________________________
The titles of all the posters in this Special Collection refer to Israeli military operations launched against Gaza. The posters promote "imaginary films" that were produced by an imaginary film company named "Gazawood", a pun on "Hollywood".Both the posters and the company are the creative products of two brothers, Ahmad and Mohammad Abu Nasser, who gave themselves the "screen" names of "Tarzan" and "Arab"From the A. M. Qattan Foundation catalog:
Anthony Quinn’s dance in Zorba the Greek, and the last breath of Michael (played by Al Pacino) in The Godfather, are two unforgettable scenes in the history of cinema. Such images are of the finest humanity and a condensation of the moment, of love and madness. Without doubt, these images contributed to creating our warm memories of cinema and set our pulse running out of a passion for colours and images.
Driven by the innocence of a child and a dream, we collect picture cut outs, film reels and songs, across time and since the birth of our dream of cinema. Something was growing inside us, allowing us to realise that there is no siege that could suffocate our heavenly passion, and our belonging to this identity and dream.Gabriel García Márquez wrote in his autobiography: “Artistic tendency is the most mysterious of all, because one dedicates one’s whole life to it, without expecting anything in return.”