Nicolas Wadimoff’s ‘Who Is Still Alive’ Brings Palestinian Voices to Venice

For Nicolas Wadimoff, Who Is Still Alive is nothing but “an absolute necessity.” The Swiss director has long-dominated the doc and feature film space for his politically provocative work, including on the 1997 immigrant-centered story Stowaways with Denis Chouinard and the Marseille-set martial arts docu-drama Spartans. For much of his life, however, he’s been routinely pulled back to the stories of Gaza, such as on 1992’s Les Gants d’Or d’Akka, about a Palestinian boxer with Olympic dreams forced to fight under the Israeli flag, or Aisheen (Still Alive in Gaza), focused on the aftermath of Israel’s 2008 air strikes on the Gaza Strip. In his latest feature, a documentary titled Who Is Still Alive premiering in Giornate Degli Autori’s official selection at Venice, all Wadimoff is asking of his audience is time. “It takes time to hear and feel what the protagonists went through,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter while on a break from color grading his new film. “This isn’t just another war; it’s something else.” In Who Is Still Alive (Qui Vit Encore), nine voices from Gaza tell their story. The group — made up of women and men, old and young — reflect on their life before and
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