Under the Rainbow

In May 2026, for the first time, the UN added Israel to a blacklist of countries that commit sexual violence in war zones. However, this kind of abuse has been known to human rights groups for decades. While Israel brands itself internationally as “the only haven for gay people in the Middle East”, the sexual abuse it subjects Palestinians to is mostly targeted at men and boys. This “diverse, open, and free society” has a particular fixation with raping male Palestinian detainees. A particular cultural phenomenon, or a deliberate genocidal practice deeply rooted in the orientalist outlook?

Under the Rainbow is a stark performance confronting the use of sexual violence as a weapon of torture and the political and economic powers that enable its persistence. An urgent reflection on memory, accountability and collective silence. 

Viewers discretion is advised. Sensitive content: explicit description of sexual violence and dehumanisation practices as means of torture.

With the participation of Artiom Zavadovsky
 

Artiom Zavadovsky (Bălți, Republic of Moldova) is a documentalist currently studying at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Zavadovsky’s work is interdisciplinary, mixing performance, documentary theatre, filmmaking, video art, and drag. His artistic interests include the social, political and economic realities of the marginalised, radical queering as resistance, and personal memories as an activation tool for collective consciousness. He is a member of the independent queer feminist theatre collective teatru-spălătorie in Chișinău, Republic of Moldova.