The Zoo

The Zoo is a unique look at the daily scramble of life in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya through the eyes of Palestine’s one and only zookeeper-veterinarian-taxidermist, Dr Sami Khader. Just 15 kilometers from the outskirts of Tel Aviv and surrounded by Jewish settlements, Qalqiliya is completely fenced off from the rest of the world by Israel’s new security wall. Like the town itself, the zoo has been hit hard by Israeli army raids and suffered further losses when its zebras succumbed to tear gas during a demonstration at a neighbouring high school. Images of the devastated zoo made international television news, and Dr Sami’s determination to keep the park open turned him into a current affairs star for the requisite 15 minutes. This documentary discusses the real story while accompanying the voluble and entertaining Dr Sami on a mission to rescue two baboons from a run-down facility in Nablus. The degree of bureaucracy and checkpoint subterfuge entailed in the mission turns an already bizarrely symbolic task into a flabbergasting exercise in absurdity.