Synopsis:

Echoes of the Unsung is an experimental-documentary about, and made by, the Gazan rock band Osprey V, who have thus far survived the current genocide. Filmed over the course of three(+) years of bombardment, the story follows the band as we are displaced from bombings within Gaza, then separated between borders. From songwriting without instruments, to recording the day the studio is bombed, every aspect of making music becomes a historical document of the conditions that makes them impossible. This film is about the courage of overcoming this impossibility.

As a musical journey that uses cinema to question what it means to be heard, the story unravels as it is being filmed, and the act of filming becomes central to the story itself. For example, our cameraman Ismail was killed in the Baqaa Cafe Massacre, only two months after shooting many of this film’s scenes. Ismail’s voice speaking from behind the camera, haunts the film throughout. Witnessable in self-reflexive form, the act of risking our lives to produce this film becomes an enacted record of the resilience worth being documented. While the story moves through the band’s archives, it documents the archive’s impossibility, since most belongings were destroyed in bombings.

The act of filming is revealed to be a necessity, not only to document our experiences - knowing that it could be all that’s left of us once killed - but also as a means of survival itself: producing content to gain life-saving opportunities. This film follows the success of the band as a defining factor in our survival, and in the empowerment of others. This is the story of building infrastructure between communities of artists and musicians, who are choosing life in the face of so much death.

Director

Osprey V is a Gazan rock-band that operates as a film/art-collective.  

Our film [Inaudible] was screened at Festival Cine-Palestine (Paris), Santa Monica Art Center (Barcelona), Palinale Festival (Berlin), Diffusion Festival (Toronto), Giorno Poetry Systems (New York City), Whitney Museum’s ISP Exhibition (NYC), and Rockbund Museum (Shanghai). Our music-videos screened at Palau St.Jordi in Barcelona (with Rosalia, Tinariwen, Bad Gyal) and an online concert with Roger Waters, Tom Morello, and Brian Eno. 

Ash Moniz, our drummer, screened at the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, the Berlinale | Forum Expanded, among others.