Animation Community for Palestine in Action

In June 2025 in Slovenia there was an awareness campaign aimed at the Municipality of Maribor, which put forward – bluntly and straight-forwardly – the question: “And what were you doing while the genocide in Gaza was taking place?” Arguably, this is the most urgent question we have to keep asking ourselves, and those around us – in physical spaces as well as in hybrid and online agora. This is a direct call not to look away; a call that we found at many occasions in the core of the most reverberating, heart- and mind-changing works of engaged cinema, from Akira Kurosawa to Norman McLaren, from Samuel Fuller to Ryszard Czekała, from Agnieszka Holland to  Katariina Lillqvist.

The animation community, slowly but consistently, has been organizing itself, aiming at normalization of support and film activism for Palestine, and at acknowledging Palestinian cultural traditions in film animation, including its modes and methods of cultural resistance and survival. An informal group, AC4Pal (Animation Community for Palestine), has been meeting regularly since February 2025, above all in order to support Haneen Koraz and the animation workshops that Haneen and other Palestinian animation mentors keep organizing across Gaza Strip despite the horrors they experience. 

In Summer 2025 the global call for AniJam “To Gaza, With Love” was launched and answered by 620 filmmakers. Each screening of StopTrik 2025 will proceed with a chosen AniJam video (find full list of the works presented below). The AniJam project brought together 329 short films from over 50 countries, created by animators, students, and studios in a collective act of solidarity with the people of Gaza. Ever since Sunday, 21.9.2025 you can watch the films and find out about the directors through the  INTERACTIVE MAP .

Find more about AC4Pal and our actions

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Find more about AC4Pal and our actions 〰️

Support Haneen and her team on GoFundMe and Patreon (animationstories)

Animation workshops in Gaza

Since May 2024, Haneen Koraz, a stop motion animator with the team of devoted animation trainers - among them Nour A-Jawad and Shorouq Darwish - tirelessly organize animation workshops for children all around Gaza. Against displacement and starvation, against genocide - they keep on animating stories of survival and solidarity.

 For children, stop motion animation is more than just a technique - it is a window into their deepest thoughts and hidden fears. Through character movement, they do more than create scenes; they release their emotions into the world - expressing joy, anger, fear, and love with delicate adjustments to facial expressions and body movements. They imagine how a character speaks, how it sounds, how it gets angry or happy, and then they translate those emotions into vibrant, living motion. With each frame, they weave stories drawn from their own experiences, making the inanimate speak and turning ideas into moving images that tell their own tales. Animation here is not just a skill; it is a new language of self-expression, a free space for profound artistic exploration.

As Haneen says, “I deeply believe that every person has the right to express themselves freely, and that art, making, and learning cartoon films is one of the means of free expression, audio-visually, for all segments of society. I try to change the reality, even if just a little, for the children and women in the tents.”

Who Is Haneen Koraz?

Haneen Koraz is a Palestinian artist from Gaza working in the field of visual arts, with a focus on stop-motion animated films. Since 2012, she has led workshops in government and UNRWA schools, training children to create their own animated films. She develops creative projects with children and youth under the harsh conditions of siege and displacement, believing deeply in the power of art as a tool for expression and healing. Haneen uses simple, paper-based stop-motion techniques to document children's everyday stories in Gaza, especially those living in camps and marginalized areas. She has co-founded artistic workshops across the Gaza Strip and has directed and coordinated several short films that have received both local and international attention. Her work aims to amplify children's voices and express their dreams and fears through vivid, heartfelt visuals. She has participated in the annual "Theatre Days" festivals and won numerous awards in animation competitions focused on children's and women's rights. Haneen has received multiple art grants, including from Al-Harah Theater, the Palestinian Ministry of Culture’s Creativity Challenge Grant, Shababeek Art Platform, the French Institute, Filastiniyat, Action for Hope (Lebanon), and the Palestinian Cultural Fund. Her recent projects include producing animated films with girls with and without disabilities. In 2022, she received the Taawon Award for Excellence in the Cultural Sector. She also completed a 10-day training in Lebanon on cultural management and project leadership in crisis conditions.

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TO GAZA, WITH LOVE: A Global AniJam invited animators and artists from around the world to create short 10-30 second animated messages of love and support to the Palestinian people. These animated sequences/films were then collected and uploaded to an interactive global map to highlight pockets of support for Gaza from around the world. Final animations are showcased on an online interactive map, indicating the location of support. 

To Gaza, With Love: A Global AniJam is an initiative of the Animation Community for Palestine (AC4PAL), a volunteer collective of artists, animators, educators, festival directors, and curators from around the world. We are inspired by the incredible work of Haneen Koraz and her team in Gaza, who teach children to turn their stories into beautiful stop-motion animations. Their films are visionary and optimistic and offer a beacon of hope in the face of such devastation.

The list of AniJam videos screened on StopTrik (in order of appearance):

Stop Motion Animation for Children Competition II: We Come Together, dir. Shefalee Jain, Lokesh Khodke, India, 00'49''

Stop Motion Animation for Children Competition I: Hidden Under the Wings, dir. Samia Kafati, Canada, 00'35''

Opening Night: Retrospective I “What a Wonderful World”: This Land Is a Woman, dir. Joanna Quinn, UK, 00’52’

Partner Festival “Life’s a Carnival: BIAF, UK”: To Gaza with Love, dir. Kate Jessop, UK, 00’13’’

Partner Festival “Best of REX Animation Festival 2024”: Olive, dir. Valeria Weerasinghe, Italy, 00’42’’

Stop Motion Animation Competition I: Gaza Will Blossom Again, dir. Santiago Pérez, Rocío Álvarez, Colombia / Spain / Belgium, 00’30’’

Retrospective II “That’s Somethin’....”: The Cat with the Keffiyeh, dir. Vanessa Ferle and Ulrike, Greece, 00’30’’

Programme for the kindergartens: “Slipper Keeper Kitty and Friends”: My Side, dir. Raul Robin Morales, Mexico, 00'43''

Partner Festival “A Glimpse into Chinese Animation Today – Feinaki Beijing Animation Week Selection": Resilience, dir. Cheuk Man Yuk, China, 00’52’’

Stop Motion Animation for Children Competition III: Surveillance, dir. Brandon Hicks, Canada, 00'44''

Palestine Animated: Palestine Is In My Heart, dir. children between the ages of 9 & 11 under the mentorship of Nour Matar, Palestine, 00’57’’

Stop Motion Animation Competition II: Home Grown, dir. Ben Cady, Northern Ireland, 00’38’’

Retrospective III “Can Feminism Be Funny?”: They Tried to Burn Us But They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds, dir. Isa Fraga-Abaza, USA, 00’30’’

Panorama ”Wide View”: Endless Love, dir. Megan Wennberg, Canada, 00’27’’

Stop Motion Animation Competition III: Heart’s Rooted Dove, dir. Kim Noce, UK / Italy / Ireland, 00’30’’

Borderlands Competition: Night Into Day, dir. Lilli Carré, USA, 00’32’’

Panorama “JOY LTD.”: Freedom Living Room, dir. Anim AF pop, France, 00’46’’

Closing Night: We Were Seeds, dir. Adrian Piqueras, Spain (Madrid), 00’30’’