Struggle for care humanised by using animation

Ramallah: Her back to the camera, a Gaza woman ashamedly unbuttons her dress before a female Israeli soldier, revealing that her breasts were removed in a failed attempt to halt cancer.

In this climactic scene in Fatenah - the first serious Palestinian attempt at animation - the heroine flunks the security check and isn't allowed to enter Israel for treatment.

The 30-minute film is inspired by the story of a Gazan woman whose battle against breast cancer included fighting inept Palestinian doctors and indifferent Israeli soldiers, documented in a report by the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights after she died in 2004.

Filmmakers said they used animation to make their grim subject more appealing - weaving a Middle East tale whose characters crisscross the Arab-Jewish divide. An Israeli human rights activist becomes Fatenah's close friend and a love story between Fatenah and a Gazan man threads the story together. The film turns the territory into harshly coloured scenes - an Israeli checkpoint, crowded buildings and the sea.

Fatenah opened Wednesday in the West Bank city of Ramallah. It is the first animated film for commercial release made in the Palestinian territories, on a budget of $60,000 (Dh220,200) from the World Health Organisation. Producers are sending it to film festivals abroad.

The film highlights the strides of Palestinian filmmakers, who have made six feature-length movies in the past two years - despite no local funding, few experienced professionals and Israel's closure system that prevents Palestinians from moving between the West Bank and Gaza, and which restricts entry to Israel.

Director Ahmad Habash, a West Bank resident, couldn't see most of the scenes he needed to create for the film. He paid a Gazan photographer to snap pictures of the coastal territory.

For Israeli hospital scenes, Habash used photos from a website.

"I wished I could have gone there [to Gaza and Israel]," Habash said. "I think I would have sketched the characters better."

While Palestinian films range from intense realism to oddball surrealism, most highlight life under Israel's occupation, and Fatenah is no different.

Producer Saed Andoni said he hoped to humanise the struggle of Gazans seeking medical care.

The gravely ill must seek treatment abroad because doctors in Gaza's ramshackle, poorly equipped hospitals cannot treat serious diseases.

But it can take weeks for Palestinian bureaucrats to organise referrals and for Israel and Egypt to approve or deny entry.

Supplies are scarce and some critically ill residents are left to die in Gaza.