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.
Elia SuleimanTo 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.
Elia SuleimanWhat cinema can do is the reordering of this reality from a certain chaos or from a certain order into an aesthetic dimension.
Elia SuleimanA lot of narrative films leave you no space for anything else but eating popcorn. I want to go in the complete opposite direction. I have to evacuate all psychology, to be less a protagonist and more a presence.
Elia SuleimanI don't really know what people's perception about Palestinians.All art is to better life. We want to create hope and share with others. Create more pleasure, and object to despair. Really it's about that. A space where we can be less aggressed upon.
Elia SuleimanI think that whatever we express in terms of the potential truth is above all else about mobilizing ourselves for ourselves. We learn about ourselves as individuals. Identification with Palestine is universal and not restricted to geographic boundaries. It's a question of moral and ethical positions vis-à-vis all the injustices that surround us.
Elia SuleimanPalestine is about how we drink the water, whether we are being ecological or not. Palestine is our way of exercising our daily living. That's what's going to solve the problem of Palestine. It's also how we think of ourselves spiritually. This kind of disconnectedness is harmful to the person who is acting that way and is sometimes annoying.
Elia Suleiman