Films in shooting or post-production
ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA
Synopsis
Gaza, 2007. Yahia, a young student, forges a friendship with Osama, a charismatic dealer with a big heart. Together, they begin peddling drugs out of a falafel restaurant, but they are forced to grapple with a corrupt cop and his oversized ego.
Christophe Graillot
Sophie Reine
Amine Bouhafa
Nader Abd Elhay, Majd Eid, Ramzi Maqdisi
Les Films du Tambour (France)
Rani Massalha, Muriel Merlin, Marie Legrand
Made in Palestine Project (Palestine)
Rashid Abdelhamid
Riva Film (Germany)
Michale Eckelt
Ukbar Filmes (Portugal)
Pandora da Cunha Telles
Jordan Pioneers (Jordan)
Khaled Haddad
Bac Films (France)
David Grumbach
Mad Solutions (Egypt)
Alaa Karkouti
Director’s statement
Once upon a time in Gaza, Yahia the weak, Osama the reckless, and Sami, the sycophantic hypocrite, victims of a shared sense of pride, were guided by their shared instinct for survival. Like so many classic heroes of the silver screen, these three find their paths entwined into one common fate following the path of a modern Western. Friendship, vengeance, and dark humor will be the main ingredients of the film, together giving substance for thought. Once upon a time in Gaza, there was a film about a lost truth that kills some, leaving others—who know only parts of that truth— to tell themselves the history that suits them.
Biographies
Twin brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser were born in Gaza in 1988. In 2013, their short film Condom Lead was selected for the Competition at the Festival de Cannes. Their first feature film, Dégradé (2015), had its premiere in La Semaine de la Critique at Cannes. Their second feature, Gaza mon amour (2020), premiered in the Orrizonti section of the Venice International Film Festival (Orrizonti) and was Palestine’s submission to the 2021 Academy Awards.
Les Films du Tambour is a Paris-based international film production company, launched in 2014 by Rani Massalha and Marie Legrand. The duo have produced Tarzan & Arab Nasser’s Dégradé (2015) and Gaza mon amour (2020), and are currently producing their Once Upon a Time in Gaza. They have also produced Çagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti’s Sibel (2018) and Ankara99 (2024) and Atiq Rahimi’s Our Lady of the Nile (2019). In 2025, they are slated to produce Rani Massalha’s The Return of the Prodigal Son.
