Unknown Child

While working on lighting a scene featuring a young girl in a dance film in the West Bank, I was guiding the actors on how to direct the light toward her. As the lights focused precisely on her, news from Gaza reached me about the tragedy of innocent children, with the death toll surpassing 30,000 children and the number of wounded reaching tens of thousands. Despite these staggering numbers, we do not know them all, we do not know their stories, nor the weight of the bombs that fell on their small, starving bodies.

Even with all the light aimed at the girl in the scene, we only saw her shadow, without any features visible. It struck me to preserve this image as an artistic expression advocating for children’s rights everywhere—a testament to their innocence and a work of art as a form of advocacy in the midst of merciless wars.