Palestinian Directors Farah Nabulsi, Darin J. Sallam on Difficulties Telling Palestinian Stories, Hopes to ‘Preserve Our History’ Through Film

variety.com:

Sharareh Drury Filmmakers Farah Nabulsi and Darin J. Sallam recently came together to discuss how ongoing violence in Gaza has impacted the Palestinian creative community, the hardships they’ve endured telling their stories, concerns over Hollywood censorship and hopes that film can “preserve” Palestinian history for the Muslim Girl Code podcast‘s debut episode “Will Storytelling Save Palestine?” In a conversation with MuslimGirl.com founder Amani Al-Khatahtbeh for the podcast’s first Ramadan episode, Nabulsi and Sallam shared how their identities as Palestinian women have influenced the stories they spotlight, and whether identity or gender has been a barrier for them in the film industry.

Nabulsi, a British-Palestinian filmmaker whose recent works include the Oscar-nominated short “The Present” and “The Teacher,” notes that the difficulties she has faced more often have been due to independent cinema being a challenge in itself and that the stories she wants to tell are Palestinian and set in Palestine — instead of she herself being Palestinian. “Making it in independent cinema, regardless of whether you are Palestinian or not, is extremely difficult and hard,” Nabulsi says in the interview, adding that the act of indie filmmaking is “an endurance test” especially in a male-dominated industry, but she has ultimately learned “how to maneuver” through those elements. “I am British-Palestinian, but even as a Palestinian, that’s never been an issue for me; it’s more that the stories I’m telling are Palestinian stories set in Palestine,” she continues. “You have a big majority of the film industry that isn’t necessarily particularly excited or interested in supporting films on that subject, whether it be from the.