A handful of haunting images connect the 22 short films in From Ground Zero, Palestine’s poignant Academy Award submission: the eerie hum of drones patrolling Gaza’s airspace; bodies trapped beneath piles of rubble dotting once bustling neighborhoods; and clusters of tents housing people forced into itinerancy. Startling in their familiarity, these scenes have become a shorthand for an ongoing nightmare. Anyone following Israel’s unrelenting and escalating bombardment of Gaza over the last 16 months — whether through the eyes of journalists like Bisan Owda (who won an Emmy for her reporting) or civilians asking for support to escape the besieged enclave — will recognize those images.

But they function differently in From Ground Zero, an anthology work produced by the Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi and distributed by Watermelon Pictures. They do not define life in Gaza. They are an entry point, a means through which these filmmakers process their painful present...