Israel, the Israelis, and the rest of the world have been brainwashed. They don't think of pre-1948, they have no idea Palestinians were in Israel, who we were before '48. As if we were born in 1948 according to them. They have no notion that we had a country, houses, rebelled against the Ottomans and the British. They think history in that region started in that moment.

To think of a film from the point of view of a tank barrel is already so inhumanly positioned. This is when film can reveal itself scandalously.

People in power tend to find poetry dangerous to them because it is dislocating, they can't catch it, can't control it. They prefer coherence, what's blunt and has clarity.

I don't particularly have a good memory. I think history is many times just the text written by the victors. I wanted to counter that aspect.

It's crucial to choose your work place - some places lend themselves to you and others don't.

Palestine is an extremely familiar place to me. Someone like me who lives everywhere in the world cannot be contained. If my hope and ambitions are in the right place, you can judge that in my films. I want to make films that diffuse any local notion. Cinema criss-crosses borders and check points. If the film is good, then it's universal.

Living more intensely, more lovingly, with more camaraderie, that is in itself resistance.