GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — If one wants to make an animated clip of a child on his bicycle, it requires 24 frames for a single second of animation. The images are displayed in quick succession, and the human brain processes the still images as movement. This is the basic idea behind the first animated film in the history of cinema, produced in 1908, when French caricaturist Emile Cohl drew 700 still images and displayed them in succession to produce the animated cartoon “Fantasmagorie.”

Many others followed suit and succeeded in creating hundreds of animated films and series like "Mickey Mouse" and "Tom and Jerry." The animation industry developed further, and today there is 3-D animation. While Gaza City, like all others, is influenced by the creativity of the world surrounding it, the occupation and siege have hindered it in the technical industries.

These industries include animation, which has fallen behind after eight years of siege due to the difficulty of marketing and the scarcity of investment in this field. The first and last animated 3-D film produced in the Gaza Strip was “The Scarecrow.” It was screened in March 2013, with funding from a grant by the World Bank Fund.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, the film’s producer Khalil al-Mazen said, “Producing the film was very difficult, since many technologies are not available in Gaza.” He explained that at the time, it was unusual to try to produce an animated film in Gaza, which is typically an environment more conducive to documentary and narrative films.