Exclusive footage from a powerful new documentary

Watch Palestinian stand-up Nidel Damo prepare for a gig in Gaza in this exclusive Chortle clip.

The footage shows the lengths the comedian has to go to in order to secure something as simple as a shower before a show in his home town of Al Nuseirat

Nidel's brother, Rasmi, shot the footage as a short called Everything Is Fine, one of 22 such films to feature in a new anthology about life in Gaza under Israeli bombardment.

Entitled From Ground Zero, the film is produced by respected Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi and has provocative American documentary-maker Michael Moore as executive producer.

It will be released in UK cinemas on September 12, with a full list of screenings available at www.fromgroundzero.co.uk

The film – Palestine’s official entry to the 2025 Academy Awards – is being released  in the UK by Glasgow-based Cosmic Cat, who say it ‘fuses documentary, fiction, black comedy and animation to create an urgent and intimate cry for humanity from a people under siege’.

It has been praised by the Hollywood trade press, with Variety saying: ‘It’s hard to ignore just how much From Ground Zero feels like history unfolding, and tragedy being memorialized, right before our eyes.’ And The Hollywood Reporter wrote: ’That From Ground Zero exists is nothing short of a miracle… making new images of Palestinian life, ones that celebrate survival instead of only documenting despair.’ 

The individual films range from three to six minutes in length and include Neda’a Abu Hassnah’s Out of Frame about artist Ranin Al Zeriei surveying the remainder of her destroyed studio; Reema Mahmoud’s Selfies showing a young woman applying her make-up to hide the physical signs of trauma; and Khamis Masharawi’s Soft Skin, which captures young children using stop-motion animation to depict the horror of their parents writing their family names on their limbs in case a bomb hits. 

From Ground Zero was shot in between – and sometimes during – bombing raids across nine months from 2023 to 2024.  It is described by the distributors as ‘an extraordinary time capsule, an urgent response to an ongoing catastrophe, and an artist’s call to bear witness to a crime scene.’

Published: 25 Aug 2025