Palestine, Qatar
2026 | 77 min. | Fiction

Set in Gaza in 2025, thirteen-year-old Raghad and her father, Abu Raghad, navigate displacement following a devastating bombing. As Raghad reaches womanhood in an overcrowded camp without privacy or basic care, her father turns to black-market aid trading to ensure their survival. Through their journey, THIRTEEN IN GAZA delivers an intimate portrait of war’s hidden toll on personal dignity, social bonds, and childhood innocence.

Directed by: Hosam Abu Dan
Written by: Khalil Al-Muzayyen
Produced by: Hosam Abu Dan, Hanna Atallah
Cinematography: Yousef Mashharawi
Editing: Hosam Abu Dan
Costume Design: Brenji Almadhoon
Make-Up & Hair: Brenji Almadhoon
Original Score: Alaa El Rawey
Sound: Rana Eid, Mohammed Qofu
Cast: Mary Ziyara (Raghad), Firas Al-Masri (Abu Raghad), Ghassan Salem (Khalil)

Statement of the director:
GAZA 13+ did not begin for me as an abstract cinematic idea. I live and work in Gaza, and I have directly experienced bombardment, displacement, interrupted access to water and electricity, food insecurity, and the daily fear of living in a closed and overcrowded environment. This was not a temporary event that could be observed from a distance. It became an extended reality that reshaped the smallest details of life and changed how people understood safety, family, privacy, and responsibility.
The film began with a question that stayed with me throughout the war: what happens when the most ordinary stages of personal growth become a burden in an unstable environment? In Gaza, childhood and adolescence no longer follow a natural timeline. War imposes premature responsibilities, changes the roles inside families, and forces children to understand realities that should have remained outside their world.
I did not want to place destruction at the centre of the frame. Images of destroyed buildings are necessary, but they do not fully explain what war does to people. I wanted to look at the quieter consequences: the disappearance of privacy inside tents, the difficulty of caring for the body, the social pressure created by poverty, the changing way society looks at adolescent girls, and the transformation of aid and scarcity into sources of power. These are details that rarely appear in news reports, yet their effects may continue long after the sound of bombing ends.

Raghad’s first period is not used as a dramatic device for shock. It is the point at which the film makes visible the collision between a natural bodily transition and an environment that cannot provide care, knowledge, or safety. Without her mother, Raghad must understand her changing body alone. Her silence reflects a larger silence around girls whose most private experiences take place in public, temporary, and unsafe spaces.
The father is not written as a villain or as a heroic protector. Abu Raghad loves his daughter, but love is not enough to overcome the conditions surrounding him. The war places him inside a chain of choices in which every option carries humiliation or harm. Through his relationship with Khalil, the film explores how exploitation can grow inside the vacuum created by destruction, and how a person can become part of an unjust system while believing he is acting for his family’s survival.
To capture the physical reality of Gaza, the camera relies on an observational approach – using wide frames to reflect the scale of displacement and close shots to focus on intimate human gestures, natural light, and the raw textures of camp life. The ambient soundscape of aircraft, generators, and whispers builds tension naturally without an overbearing score. Drawing from years of filming Palestinian life from within Gaza, my feature debut aims to tell one intimate story showing how war enters the body, alters relationships, and forces children to mature beyond their age.

Production:
New Scene
https://www.instagram.com/newsceneps/

World Sales:
MAD World
https://www.madworld.film/