‘Palestine is an experience, not a place you can merely visit’

Hyderabad-based filmmaker Pranav Pingle Reddy’s five-part documentary ‘Occupied’ that focuses on young Palestinians using art as tools of resistance, will première later this year at the Athens International Film and Video Festival

You can’t change the world with a song, but you can resist through a song, exclaims Shadi Zaqtan, a songwriter, singer and composer who lives in the old city of Ramallah, Palestine, in the documentary series Occupied. The five-part series is the only Indian film to be selected for the Athens International Film and Video Festival, and will have its global première on October 24. Directed by Hyderabad-based filmmaker, Pranav Pingle Reddy, Occupied was filmed in 2016-2017. The teaser of Occupied was unveiled recently. The ongoing crisis in Palestine has once again brought the land and the plight of its people into focus. Pranav looks at Occupied as an attempt to go beyond the news headlines. “What does it mean to live in Palestine? I wanted to look at the daily lives of people,” he says.