The acrobatic discipline of Parkour — where practitioners jump from high places attempting to get from one point to another in the fastest and most efficient way possible — may serve as a powerful metaphor for those surviving in wars. This is exactly what we see in Areeb Zuaiter’s film Yalla Parkour, presented at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival in the section Panorama for its European premiere.
The motion picture — that had previously screened at DOC NYC and the Red Sea International Film Festival — intertwines the memories of a Palestinian-Jordanian-American filmmaker, with her discovery of a parkour athlete in Gaza. This is the place she visited for the first time at the age of four, where she experienced her first encounter with the sea. Gaza is also where parkour athlete Ahmed Matar practices his acrobatics, in the hope some foreign country will invite him to compete or perform, far from the bombings of his home.
Throughout the motion picture Areeb has an imaginary conversation with her late mother, who passed away in 2012. She looks at old photos from her childhood and through a stream of consciousness, that is addressed to her loving parent, she evokes all the remembrances of a safe and charming land that marked her youthful bliss. Meanwhile we also follow the journey of parkour athlete Ahmed Matar, who started practicing this sport at nine with his two friends Abdullah Inshasi and Mohammed AlJakhbir and together they founded the first parkour team in Gaza. Ahmed accomplishes his dream of moving abroad and is welcomed in Sweden. Stockholm becomes his new home although, just like Areeb, part of his heart has stayed in Gaza.
Zuaiter recalls how her parents spent their childhood in Nablus, before leaving as adults. This Palestinian old town, that was characterised by superb medieval buildings, today embodies the spirit of resistance. The filmmaker who has now found refuge in a snowy United States city, recalls the warm seaside breeze of Palestine, a country that today is fractured and destroyed. Finding Ahmed in 2015 was a way to rekindle with her past.
Areeb’s nostalgia coalesces with the hopeful future of Gaza’s young men practicing parkour amid explosions. The documentary’s choice of running these two parallel narrations and making them intersect is very suave. It provides two voices to account for Gaza’s past and present situation. Areeb evokes a joyful beach, Ahmed displays an area devastated by warfare. The athlete and his friends use as their gym and playground abandoned construction sites, decadent rooftops, a cemetery, the ruins of a mall, the remains of an airport and sandy hills. Despite the tragedy and desperation engulfing their nation, they never cease to smile, one fall after the next. The get up, covered in sand and keep going, one somersault at a time.
Yalla Parkour offers a last glimpse of a pre-October 7th Gaza. Areeb describes her mother as “having one foot in the present and the other in a dream,” which also mirrors the dual perspective portrayed in the film. As she further enhances: “Today, Ahmed and I watch from the same angle my mother once did. We see our homeland being erased from the map.” Both are filmmakers, both are from Palestine, and both had to flee their beloved homeland in order to pursue their goals and above all survive. This journey, that is carried out in tandem, becomes a glorious trip down memory lane, to reiterate the importance of knowing ones roots and preserving them no matter where life leads to.
Final Grade: B-