cinematography
Leandro Monti
Camille Cottagnoud
editing
Jean Reusser

music
Dom La Nena
sound
Carlos Ibanes Diaz
Vuk Vukmanovic
Niels Barletta

with
Jawdat Khoudari
Mahmoud Jouda
Adel Altaweel
Haneen Harara
Malak Khadra
Hanaa Eleiwa
Firaz Elshrafi
Eman Shanan
Ghada Alabadla

production
Akka Films
co-productions
Easy Riders Films
Philistine Films
producers
Ketsia Stocker
Nicolas Wadimoff
co-producers
Nadia Turincev
Omar El Kadi
Ossama Bawardi
May Jabareen

A map of Gaza, its cities, camps and neighborhoods. White paint on a black floor. In these roughly drawn outlines, nine refugees who were able to escape hell tell their stories. Their previous lives, their buried dreams, the danger, the rubble, the loss of their dear ones. Oppressed, hindered existences, but not yet reduced to ashes, not yet totally plunged into oblivion and darkness. By sharing their stories, the protagonists of Who Is Still Alive attempt to reconnect with themselves, to stop being ghosts. And, perhaps, come back to life.

Selected filmography
2025 Qui vit encore (doc)
2025 Unrwa, 75 ans d’une histoire provisoire
(doc, directed with Lyana Saleh)
2018 L’Apollon de Gaza (doc)
2016 Jean Ziegler, l’optimisme de la volonté (doc)
2014 Spartiates (doc)
2012 Opération libertad
2010 Aisheen (doc)
2005 L’accord (doc, directed with Béatrice Guelpa)
2000 Mondialito
1997 Clandestins (directed with Denis Chouinard)
1992 Les Gants d’Or d’Akka (medium-length)
1991 Le bol (short)

“What the survivors of Gaza have endured cannot be told with words alone. Gestures, breaths, or silences can be more telling, sometimes. Whatever word we use for this campaign of systematic destruction and erasure, our common framework for understanding the world seems to have become ineffective in the face of this unspeakable thing, which must not, however, remain unheard and unseen. Beyond affiliations and political opinions, the idea here is to give visibility to the stories of a people too often dehumanized, reduced to numbers. And to take the time to listen, watch, feel the battered bodies and the wounded souls. I see the film as a bridge between the intimate and collective experience of a devastated people and the spectators, who will become witnesses. A motion to think the unthinkable together. To question, search, rethink our humanity, the one we are losing, the one we must reclaim. To stay alive, over there, and here.” (Nicolas Wadimoff)

After studying film in Montreal, Nicolas Wadimoff presented his first short film The Bowl (1991) in Locarno. Guitarist in an alt-rock band, he co-founded L’Usine, an independent Genevan cultural center. In 1992, he directed The Golden Gloves of Akka, the portrait of a Palestinian boxer, and in 1997, with Denis Chouinard, Wadimoff directed his first narrative feature Clandestins. He founded Akka Films, a production company that has supported many Palestinian filmmakers, among others, in 2003. Aisheen (2010), a documentary shot in Gaza, had its world premiere at the Berlinale. The Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes hosted his return to fiction features with Operation Libertad (2012). Spartans (2015), portrait of an MMA coach in the northern parts of Marseille, won the Soleure Prize, and The Apollo of Gaza (2018) opened Locarno’s Critics’ Week. After a detour into teaching at HEAD – Genève (2019-2023), in 2025 he co-directed UNRWA, 75 Years of an Interim History with Lyana Saleh.