On July 8, Palestinian filmmaker and FilmLab Palestine founder Hanna Atallah stood inside the historic Atlas 1948 cinema, tucked in the heart of Taksim, Istanbul. 

Outside, the city was abuzz with the July 15 commemoration of a failed coup attempt that featured exhibitions, open-air films, blood drives, and symbolic acts of unity, including a projection on Galata Tower.

One standout event was Stage of Resistance, a one-day programme blending film, art, and panel. Held under the main theme “Coup, Resistance, Freedom” and framed by the conceptual message “Our World is Under Threat!” 

That spirit of defiance and resistance echoed powerfully through the evening’s centrepiece films. The event featured Atallah’s panel talk and film screening, alongside other artistic performances. 

There is an urgency to tell the untold that pulses through Atallah’s films, where personal narratives become powerful tools of cultural and political resistance.

Filmed amid the destruction of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, every short becomes a shard of lived memory, tracing grief, routine, loss, and endurance. 

The first, Upshot, is a raw, intimate portrayal of a couple in Gaza who lost their children during the war. It won Best Short at the Carthage Film Festival. 

The second, Thank You for Banking With Us, dives into feminist themes. 

Another cinematic segment that stood at the event was a gripping cinematic anthology: From Ground Zero from Gaza. The collection of stories emerged as a raw, unfiltered archive of truth spoken through the lens of survival and resistance.

Spearheaded by acclaimed Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, who wasn’t present at the event, the project amplifies the voices of 22 young filmmakers from Gaza, each capturing untold fragments of life under siege.

At the panel, Atallah spoke about the reclamation of identity and preservation of memory through cinema.

Throughout his career, he has been committed to amplifying unheard voices. In 2014, he founded the non-profit organisation FilmLab Palestine in Ramallah, creating a platform to cultivate a cinema culture, raise audience awareness, and foster professional knowledge exchange.

We met him backstage, just moments before a panel discussion and screening began.

Cinema is survival

For Atallah, cinema is not simply entertainment. It is a survival tool. Growing up in Jerusalem gave Atallah not only a unique cinematic perspective but also a purpose. 

“It shaped my method,” he says. “And it shaped my thoughts about what cinema could do, not just for me, but for my people.”

“If you want to understand people, you should go to their films. Cinema is where we preserve our history, our future, and our identity.”

When guests arrive for the Palestine Cinema Days festival, they are not chauffeured directly to gala screenings or cocktail receptions.

Instead, they are taken through winding hills, refugee camps, and the cold metal turnstiles of Israeli checkpoints.

“This is not tourism,” says Atallah. “We want them to feel what Palestinians feel, what it means to stop at a checkpoint just to move between your own cities. When you’ve stood at that wall, the films you watch later aren’t just stories. They’re true,” he tells TRT World.

“I remember once we were preparing for the closing ceremony in Ramallah. It was October—golden leaves on the ground, yet the sun was still kind,” Atallah says.

He leans back, eyes flickering as the memory rises. 

“Our special guest was Ladj Ly, the French filmmaker behind Les Miserables. He was part of our jury that year. It should have been a celebration.”

But two hours before the final curtain call, celebration gave way to occupation.

“The Israeli soldiers broke into the Ramallah Cultural Palace,” Atallah says. “They invaded the entire venue.” 

His voice sharpens. “Soldiers were walking on the red carpet we had laid out for the guests. There are photos of them in full gear, right on the red carpet.”

Some of his colleagues were already at the venue; others, like Atallah, were en route. As tear gas filled the air and stones clashed with military boots, the team faced a choice: cancel the event or carry on.

“We didn’t cancel. We refused,” he says, firmly.

“Even if they left at midnight, we were going to have that closing ceremony.”

They told the audience not to give up their tickets, not to concede defeat.

“We would not let them erase our story that night.”

That moment is more than an anecdote. It is emblematic of Atallah’s vision: cinema as resistance. For Atallah, cinema is not just art. It is memory. It is refusal. It is resistance.

“For Palestinians, resistance is a daily act. It’s about freedom—a refusal to disappear.”

This belief is the guiding ethos behind FilmLab Palestine to preserve collective memory, and build a local film infrastructure amid ongoing political and physical occupation.

Narrative against erasure

Growing up in Jerusalem gave Atallah both a cinematic perspective and a sense of purpose.

“It shaped my method,” he says. “And it shaped my thoughts about what cinema could do—not just for me, but for my people.”

Founded in 2014 in Ramallah, the same year as the inaugural Palestinian Cinema Days, FilmLab Palestine began by offering training programmes and technical support to emerging filmmakers. 

It established post-production studios and welcomed young creatives who had the vision but lacked the resources.

Atallah proudly says, “Every year, there is at least one Palestinian film in a major international festival. That tells you something.”

“Part of our fight with the Zionist movement is about narrative,” he says. “It’s about showing the world who we are — not as statistics, not just as victims, but as human beings fighting for freedom, for our right to exist and to live.”

But it is not without challenges as Atallah explains that the Palestinian film industry faces fundamental hurdles, starting with a lack of basic infrastructure.

“There’s no dedicated cinema fund, no fully equipped studios, and barely enough trained crew,” he says. “So FilmLab Palestine was born to fill that gap.”

Since its founding, Palestine Cinema Days has grown into the country’s leading international film festival—not merely screening art-house films, but providing a space for the local industry to engage with producers, editors, and broadcasters from around the world.

“We run the festival across five cities: Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gaza, and sometimes Haifa,” Atallah says. “And we make it more than just film screenings.”

Indeed, one of the festival’s most distinctive features is what happens off-screen. Guests—many from Europe, Latin America, or the wider Arab world—are taken on curated tours through refugee camps, remote villages, and Israeli checkpoints.

“And here, every day, there are thousands of stories waiting to be filmed.”

FilmLab Palestine: More than cinema

Before FilmLab Palestine, few initiatives had the longevity or structure to transform a cultural impulse into a sustained movement.

The absence of a national cinema fund makes these achievements all the more urgent.

“We don’t have a special fund for cinema,” Atallah says. “So, we had to create our own networks. If we didn’t, nobody else would.”

His conviction is rooted in something deeper than funding models or production logistics or equipment.

“We built a strategy, not just to make films, but to support the infrastructure for the film industry itself. We established a colour grading studio, sound studio, editing suite—even equipment that didn’t exist before in Palestine.”

He said that he was convinced to turn to cinema not just for consumption but for production.

“I knew in my heart that I would become a filmmaker,” he says simply. “I believed deeply in cinema. As I grew up, I just knew this was what I wanted to do.”

That certainty carried him to Cairo, where he studied film and lived for nearly eight years.

“Egypt has a real film industry. Cairo is full of cinema, full of cultural activity. I gained real experience there—attending screenings, watching films, living in that world.”

In contrast, Palestine was cinematically barren. 

“Most of our theatres were closed. The occupation didn’t allow us to watch films. There were no real spaces to go and see movies.”

When he returned, the contrast was jarring.

“There wasn’t a real film industry in Palestine,” he says. “I started by giving workshops. But I realised that wasn’t enough. We needed a hub, a place where young filmmakers could return, collaborate, and create.”

That vision became FilmLab Palestine. And while others came and went, Atallah’s project endured.

“Some initiatives fade out because of funding, politics, whatever. But we’re still here. We’re still doing the work.”

FilmLab Palestine doesn’t only build local capacity, it opens doors abroad.

“We send filmmakers to festivals, co-production markets, networking events. It’s important that they begin their journey with the world. That’s how we keep our stories alive.”

Memory as resistance against exile

Atallah also launched the Palestinian Memory Documentation Project at the Talbiyeh Refugee Camp in Jordan.

“Back in 2008 or 2009, we worked with youth in the Talbiyeh refugee camp in Jordan. We trained them to document their grandparents’ memories,” says Atallah.

“When the elders die, their memories go with them — the Nakba, exile, loss. We needed to preserve them.”

For Atallah, cinema is the most powerful way to protect those memories. Some of his students went on to become filmmakers.

Filmmaking, for Atallah, is not just about art. It is a means of preserving identity and confronting erasure. Each film produced under siege, in exile, or drawn from lived experience, becomes part of a collective act, a refusal to be silenced or erased.

“Our films are how we resist the Zionist erasure of our narrative. It’s how we say: we existed, and we still do.”