This week, Paris is hosting the fifth edition of its annual Palestinian Film Festival. The focus this year is Gaza and the guest of honour is director and writer Rashid Masharawi. A self-taught filmmaker who was born in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Masharawi has produced a long list of works and set up a mobile cinema that brings movies to refugee camps. His films include "Laila's birthday", "Ticket to Jerusalem", "Waiting" and "Writing on Snow". He joined us for Perspective.
"We have problems between Palestinians," the filmmaker tells FRANCE 24. "I think it is catastrophic for us, under Israeli occupation, to have two governments and not to be united. If we are not united we will never get out of the occupation."
For Masharawi, freedom is about accepting each other in spite of our differences and he says there is a need to see things and name things for what they are. "After the Oslo Accords, everything changed. It looks like we are a state because we have a president, ministers and embassies. But we are not. We are still under occupation."
