Final Rating: 3.5/5
The narration echoes in the first moments of the film. It is the conversation of a daughter with her mother, who is no longer there. She confesses that she is looking for the same smile and joy that she saw when they were at home in Palestine. The voice is Areeb Zuaiter, the director of Yalla Parkour.
In the first minutes, on a board, she draws the silhouette of a beach in the Gaza Strip. A few moments later, we see the footage of young men performing parkour there. Amidst the sand and ruins, those men backflip and jump from roofs. Curiosity about the image and the love for filmmaking unite her with Ahmed, the one responsible for filming their adventures. For a few years, we accompany the interactions of Areeb and Ahmed, their bonding through their homeland, and the imagery.
Yalla Parkour is more than a sports documentary. Indeed, it is a diary from Areeb to her mother. Yet, Ahmed becomes a co-writer in this notebook. They share the joys of being Palestinians, but they are in different places. It goes beyond geographically, but as citizens of the world. She lives in the United States, working as a filmmaker, and raising her family under a stable roof. He is still discovering his place in the world; meanwhile, his house is a refugee camp. There is a dichotomy of both being from the same place, but his hardships answer her questions. Ahmed tells her he can stay in Gaza and live amidst the ruins of a highly controlled place. But if he wants to achieve his dreams, he must go somewhere.
In this sense, the film presents its beauty through differences. They bond over their shared roots and opposing experiences. Areeb wants to return to Palestine, while Ahmed urges him to leave. The nuances of their motivations explore the inhuman policies that Ahmed lives with. In 2016, Ahmed went through a harsh process of getting a visa permit to leave the strip. Israel does not allow him to leave, and the border opens twice a year.
He goes to Egypt on an invitation to a consulate appointment to request his permission to leave. Simultaneously, Ahmed exposes the accident of Jenji, one of the athletes in his parkour group, who fell off a building and broke over fifty bones. He needed to wait for a week to go to Israel to get the necessary treatment. Those situations and the imagery Ahmed provides to illustrate them are shocking and disclose the apartheid environment they live in.
Therefore, the film is a personal declaration from Areeb to her mother and their homeland. Still, the director is not aware of her identity. She is Jordanian, American, and Palestinian. Yet, Ahmed answers her question: she is a Palestinian. Throughout the eight years of film development, she watches the ruin of Gaza from home.
The aftermath of Israel’s 2014 heavy attack reflects on the destroyed background of those men practicing their sport. They climbed over abandoned buildings and bombed construction sites. However, the result of the ongoing genocide is a generation of destruction. There are thousands of dead and injured people from the attacks. Areeb reflects through her letter to her mother that she could find the same smile in Ahmed’s. Thankfully, their heritage lives through the imagery and joy they share over their home.
In the 2023 footage of them in a Zoom call, Areeb sees a different man, someone whose parkour work could save him from a massacre. Yalla Parkour is the joint history of people united by home and separated by passport. Nonetheless, the poetic imagery and memories of the director paint a beautiful homage to her mother. At the same time, it documents the history of a man saved by sport and film.
Yalla Parkour was seen during the 2025 Hot Docs film festival. Thank you to Kinana Films for the screener.
