Grassroots Filmmaking

Cinema to me has always been a medium where people from different backgrounds, with different skills and talents come together to create stories, stories to be shared with the world beyond the limitations of geography or culture. I have always kept my family and friends close and I feel blessed to have them by my side because without them my cinema would never be possible. I'm a result of life with them as a community and as an individual reflecting on our experiences, pains, happiness, dreams and nightmares. 

This was the path I believed in for years and pursued. I always felt I had to create a model of storytelling and film production that would enable me, my family and my friends to create films and share compelling organic stories with the world against the odds of our country’s limitations and challenges of funding.

Having received film training in a grassroots city like San Francisco, the experiences of filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi), Christopher Nolan (Following), and others who brought their films to life against all odds has always impressed, challenged and motivated me to think that producing a feature film against all odds and with very little money is possible.

It was obvious that the challenge and the secret lied in story. I had to come up with a universal story that people anywhere in the world would watch till the end and take home with them in their minds and hearts. In addition, it had to be a simple enough story so its production would be possible with the resources I have access to.

I feel very blessed today to be able to present a feature-length film that is the result of the efforts of my friends, my family and myself pushing creatively against all challenges and resource constraints. I am glad to say we have made it so far completely independently, with Palestinian local talent and against all the odds of Palestine’s humble economy and turbulent day to day politics.

Love, Theft and Other Entanglements is the result of many stories I witnessed, experienced personally, reflected on, followed in the media and was affected by like all Palestinians. I hope audiences everywhere will enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it.