"There is no pride when gay men are blackmailed"

In the shadow of the war on Gaza, Dima Hamdan received a prestigious film award without joy—but only gratitude. Her film "Blood like Water" was named the best short film at October’s Iris Film Festival, seen as the "Oscars of queer short film."

Directed and produced in Palestine in 2023, the film tells the story of Shadi, a young gay man from the West Bank whose secret love affair with a friend is caught on camera by an Israeli officer. The officer blackmails Shadi, threatening to publicly expose his private life online unless he collaborates, demanding information about when Shadi’s neighbor Raed, who is wanted by the military, will return home. Shadi and his family are left with few options, each carrying severe consequences.

The 14-minute film depicts the family's dilemma. Shadi, played by actor Atallah Tannous, refuses to be blackmailed but has to tell his family about blackmail, inadvertently coming out to his parents (played by Ruba Bilal and Adeeb Safadi). 

Shadi’s father kicks him out of the family house but also refuses to give in to the officer’s threats, risking that the video will be shared, exposing the whole family to shame in their conservative community.

The idea for the film, Hamdan explains, emerged during a conversation with a friend about the Israeli military's methods of recruiting Palestinian informants. "It's a tactic of targeting gay men, secretly filming them in intimate moments and blackmailing them with these recordings," the director explains.

Hamdan spent more than two years researching this tactic, speaking to young Palestinians and their parents to learn more. "I found that most of the targeted young people come from conservative families that do not accept their homosexuality, which is why they are easily blackmailed," she says. 

"My aim is to initiate a dialogue"

With her film, Hamdan looks to spark an internal Palestinian dialogue on how to deal with this complex issue. She asks how families can be protected without forcing those targeted to cooperate with the occupation forces, while also considering how queer individuals can be shielded from exploitation by Israeli occupiers.

"It's not my aim to make people accept homosexuality, because entrenched beliefs are difficult to change," says Hamdan. "My aim is to initiate a dialogue, starting from the point of consensus that the Palestinian cause has top priority."

"Resistance means making sacrifices and difficult decisions, even if some of them conflict with other personal and ideological convictions," she continues. "Acceptance of homosexuality here can be seen as a part of the resistance against the occupation, to deprive it of this effective tool that it employs against our young people."

Now based in Berlin, Hamdan began her career as a journalist more than 20 years ago. She worked with BBC Arabic and BBC World Service for 10 years, where she reported from Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. This period served as the inspiration for her work as a director. 

Her debut short film "Gaza-London" was awarded the Best Arab Short Film Award at the Jordan Film Festival in 2009. For her film "The Bomb", she received the Best Director Award from the Ayodhya Film Festival in India, and special recognition at the Human Rights Film Festival in Naples, Italy. 

The Iris Prize is already the fifth award for "Blood like Water". The film won prizes at the Panoptic Festival in Barcelona, the Through Women's Eyes short film festival in Florida, the Brooklyn Film Festival and the Oslo/Fusion Festival. It has been nominated for further accolades and continues to screen at festivals worldwide.

"I didn’t intend to make a queer film"

"There is no pride when gay Palestinian men are blackmailed and oppressed," Hamdan said in her speech at the Iris ceremony in October. She highlighted the contradiction of Israel’s image as a safe haven for queer people worldwide, citing incidents such as Israeli soldiers waving rainbow flags amid the ruins of Palestinian homes in Gaza.

“Every award means a lot to me, but I was really surprised when it won the Iris Award. It's one of the biggest awards for queer short films in the world and there were 35 other short films represented.” 

"I didn’t intend to make a queer film. I chose a real problem that should be discussed," she says. "The fact that the film received this award made me realise that it not only created an internal Palestinian debate but touched many other people and communities. It shows that the story of gay Palestinians being targeted by the occupation is of interest to a much wider audience than we thought."

Hamdan also questions the role of art in this context: "Sometimes I feel guilty because the success of my films is a personal success before it is a success for the Palestinian cause. But I also realise that stopping artistic production and participation in festivals is not an option, because it's exactly what Israel wants."

"What is happening in Gaza now is not just physical annihilation, but also an attempt to annihilate the Palestinian soul wherever it exists," she says. For Hamdan, participation in cultural and artistic events is a duty, and a way to "narrow the space given to the occupation’s narratives about the lives of Palestinians."

As Hamdan searches for funding for her first feature-length film, which will be shot in Palestine, she is grateful for every award and every expression of solidarity she receives at festivals or from the public. "Solidarity shows us that we are not alone, that people all over the world stand by our side, even if they cannot stop all this injustice and evil."