An American documentary filmmaker, Adam Abel, is completing a documentary: Qalqilya: Where Palestinian Boys are Learning How to Fly about the boys and hopes to raise money necessary to make the first West Bank skating park.
Who is and was responsible for bringing these boys together? Sajed Abed-Ulbeh , an inline skater and award-winning hairdresser, began the group. Sajed has been challenging the system for a while. Muslim boys should get their haircut in a barber shop, but Sajed has managed to maintain and improve his salon, New Look, for four years. Although I first met Sajed and Kareem, who lives for parkour, in a café, I spent most of the day with them in Sajed’s salon where posters, a large Canadian flag, and graffiti cover the walls. There, I listened to beat box and rap.
Parkour is the main attraction for a number of the boys. The day after I met Sajed and his team in Qalqilya, I happened to encounter them practicing in a nearby Nablus town park. This second encounter gave me more opportunity to video the boys in action.
Location: Qalqilya, West Bank
“These boys want to learn how to fly. Enclosed by a concrete cage, they break free by literally taking off into the air whether on skates or from high walls. They paint and write and compose and sing. In spite or because of the barriers and restrictions imposed on them by their own culture as well as the occupation they express themselves in remarkable ways.” --Adam Abel
In order to understand the Qalqilya X Team’s need for self-expression, you must first understand Qalqilya, a town in the West Bank surrounded by the Israeli separation barrier built in 2003. A number of suicide bombers lived in Qalqilya during the second intifada. This wall (25 feet high) with its patrol roads, paths, and trenches, encircles the city from the north, south and east. A military checkpoint guards one entrance to Qalqilya. Most of the town’s residents are Palestinian refugees.
Before the second intifada many people from Qalqilya worked in Green Line Israel; some Palestinian businesses worked with Israeli businesses. This commerce and source of income no longer exists. Qalqilya also lost land when the wall was built. Water is another problem. Many families have left the town since the wall was constructed. As a result, very few outlets for teens exist.
The X- Game boys meet to skate, make graffiti, perform beat box and hip hop, and practice parkour. They do not have “legal” places in which to practice their arts. To the contrary, they often meet at night in alleys and on deserted school grounds. The day I met them and made the video below, they were shooed away from the school grounds where we were watching them.
Nablus Park X-Game Boys
Nablus Park X-Game Boys
Qalqilya X-Game Boys
Mohammed, a Singer, Tulkarem, the West Bank