“The Echo of the Gaze,” directed by Carles Bover from Mallorca, has been selected as one of the 15 films vying for the Best Documentary Short Film nomination at the 41st Goya Awards, which will be held on February 6 in Pamplona.
This piece revisits footage filmed in Gaza for the short film of the same name, which won a Goya in 2019, and has reached this stage after being screened at more than 60 festivals around the world. Of these, 16 festivals eligible for the Goya Awards have recognized the short film by including it in their official selection, helping to place it among the 15 documentaries vying for a nomination.
More than ten years ago, Carles Bover and Julio Pérez del Campo filmed in Gaza the consequences of the ethnic cleansing and violence perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people over decades. Those recordings led to ‘Gaza,’ a short film that won the Goya Award for Best Documentary Short Film. Now, ‘El ressò de la mirada’ revisits these images from a different perspective.
The short film is a documentary essay about the burden of filming pain, the guilt the viewer feels, and the filmmaker’s responsibility.
Based on footage shot in Gaza more than a decade ago, Carles Bover revisits discarded images, direct camera looks, and awkward moments to question his own perspective, his calling as a documentary filmmaker, and the power of images to provoke a response in the viewer.
The film also reflects on our overexposure to suffering and the risk that the harshness of the images will cause us to look away not only from them, but also from the reality they represent, their context, and the memory of them.
“Beyond the hope of being in the running for another Goya Award nomination, what really fills us with every award and recognition the film receives is being able to keep the focus on Gaza. If there’s one thing we want to ask with this short film, it’s that we don’t stop talking about Gaza,“ the director said on his social media accounts.
‘The Echo of the Gaze’ is a Sealand Films production, co-produced by IB3, with the support of the Institute for Cultural Industries of the Balearic Islands and the Council of Mallorca.