From Ground Zero

At times both uplifting and heart-wrenching, this is an impressive anthology considering the constraints of the filmmakers. Two in particular stand out. In "Soft Skin," a group of children create a stop-motion animation about their experience of the war. At one point, a young boy says that he doesn't want his mother to write his name on his arm because he "doesn't want them to find me in pieces." In "Taxi Waneesa," we follow a man operating a makeshift taxi towed by donkey. Before the film's conclusion, there's a hard cut to the director, who tells us that she could not bear to finish the film after losing her family in a bombing. The story is left incomplete. On list: 2024 RANKED