13 Minutes in Gaza: Lana Komsany’s Harrowing Short Film
In her 13-minute short film Al-Mashhad (“The Scene”), Saudi director and acting coach Lana Komsany attempts to bridge the gap between news headlines and the visceral human experience of the genocide in Gaza. The film follows a single family over 36 hours as they are trapped beneath the ruins of their bombed home, capturing their final moments as they are killed one by one amidst the cries of a baby and the distant roar of war.
To capture the psychological terror of being buried alive, Komsany drew on 15 years of acting pedagogy and stagecraft. She placed her five actors inside literal enclosed boxes and used hand-crafted materials, such as fabric dipped in wet cement, to create a hyper-realistic, claustrophobic environment. Komsany describes the work as a "humanitarian documentation" intended to preserve the voices of those lost, pointedly rejecting the urge to "look away" from the tragedy. Despite the film's intense imagery, the director maintains that it remains a restrained version of the graphic realities documented daily on social media.
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