“I’m the first one in my family to ever go back to Palestine, including my grandparents,” begins Vin Arfuso. “I want people to understand the Palestinian cause for freedom and dignity, and why they should support it.”
Thirty-year-old American film director and producer of Palestinian and Italian descent Vin Arfuso is no stranger to the Palestinian cause, and his passion for the struggle and resistance is palpable in his directorial debut Walled Off.
In a powerful collaboration with American-Palestinian model and musician Anwar Hadid, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, and Kweku Mandela, the grandson of former South African President Nelson Mandela, Walled Off, takes viewers on a journey through occupied Palestine, exposing the absurdity of Israel’s occupation by mashing up critical and candid voices that humanize Palestinians and weaving a narrative that highlights the power of politically and socially engaged art.
The film’s name is inspired by Banksy’s The Walled Off Hotel located next to Israel's controversial separation wall in Bethlehem – one of the most striking symbols of Israel's 55-year occupation which has become a major focus for demonstrations and artwork.
“This is my baby. The fact that Roger Waters saw something I made and wanted to be part of it makes me feel like I did something right,” Vin tells The New Arab about Walled Off, which will officially premiere in New York City in October.
Humanizing the Palestinian cause
Walled Off first premiered in Albenga, Italy last month to a rapturous round of applause and a standing ovation from the audience for its ability to break through the noise and propaganda and document the obscene nature of the occupation in a way that educated and engages.
“I hope people walk away from the film understanding how terrible the Israeli occupation is,” Vin said to me candidly after the dinner.
The intimate pre-release screening of the film, co-produced by Anwar, was inspired by a 2019 trip that the two friends took together to the Occupied West Bank.
“The idea came to us as a way to humanise the Palestinian people and it just kind of evolved from there,” 23-year-old Anwar explains.
The youngest brother of supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid has, like his siblings, been vocal about the Palestinian cause. Their father Mohamed Hadid, was born in Nazareth and forced to flee Palestine with his family when he was just an infant.
“The initial mindset was to go and make a documentary – but we didn’t have a plan,” Vin continues. “I brought a super 8 camera and shot footage and when we got home Anwar was dropping his album, so I said let's use some of this footage and cut a music video for this with the Palestine footage.”
The film dips in and out of memorable moments from their journey to the homeland, following Anwar as he explores the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, owned and designed by British artist Banksy – who describes the rooms as having “the worst view of any hotel in the world.”
“I knew I wanted to cover the Walled Off Hotel because it would be a good approach to entice Americans with Banksy, then intertwine the timeline of the occupation through art,” Vin adds.
“Kinda like, ‘you guys like really controversial art?” So I thought, let me find something to grab them.”
The screening was paired with the debut solo exhibition A Child Is Born In Bethlehem by anonymous artist-activist Cake$, who uses public art to protest against Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank.
“Both art forms were instructive and direct, absolutely nothing was sugar-coated,” British-Palestinian art collector and journalist Zayna Al-Saleh, who curated the show, explains.
Cake$, who hides his true identity and describes himself on his Instagram page as an “open-air prison artist”, has created more than 300 works in Bethlehem over the past four years.
“The show wasn’t a social commentary, but is instead rooted in art activism, on all fronts,” Zayna tells The New Arab.
Where the ‘animals live’
Much of the film is presented in a guerrilla-style because a majority of his equipment was confiscated during his arrival in Israel.
The arrival to Tel Aviv was a disrupting sobering experience for both Vin and Anwar.
“The first time I landed, we got into a taxi in Tel Aviv and asked to go to Jericho where we were staying at the time,” Anwar recounts. “The Israeli taxi driver told us that is where the animals live. He proceeded to drive us there but before we arrived, he stopped in front of a police unit and had us searched and our IDs checked.”
By comparison, in Jericho, his father’s hometown, just one of several Palestinian cities they visited, he says he always felt safe, “I always felt so taken care of by the beautiful people.”
Vin started editing the film in February 2020. “I had all the time in the world then because of Covid.”
“I showed my friend Nabil who is a filmmaker, and he said come to my boy’s house. I get there and it’s me, him and his boy, except I didn’t realise his boy was Mandela’s grandson, or that he was a filmmaker or producer, until he said, ‘I really liked and appreciate how you featured my grandfather.’"
He would eventually team up with Kweku Mandela, grandson of former South African president Nelson Mandela — who guides the audience through the Oslo era in the film — and Pink Floyd guitarist Roger Waters as producers to finish the project.
“Then I sent a pitch to Roger Waters’ agent and they got back to me right away and said he wants to see a cut of the film. I sent it to him and a day later I get an email from Roger Waters himself.”
Vin tells me that for him the biggest challenge, even after getting most of his gear confiscated, was actually the music.
There were times before Kweku and Roger got involved when he would stare at it and think, “I spent all this time. I don’t own this music and know for certain some of the tracks I’ve used, I’m not gonna be able to use – I'm gonna have to redo this whole thing. I’m not gonna be able to license a lot of the music in the draft you saw, even if I come up with a million dollars.”
Leaving something valuable behind
With journalists being sacked for calling Israel an Apartheid state, and Meta admitting its policies violated Palestinian’s freedom of expression by censoring their voices and negatively impacting their human rights, I had to ask him about possible backlash, and the inevitably baseless accusations of “anti-Semitism” that would come for critiquing Israel’s apartheid regime. He acknowledged it but didn’t seem bothered by it.
“There of course is that ‘backlash’ but I welcome it because it proves my point,” he says with complete conviction. “I’m only trying to stick up for human rights here. If I get threatened with not being able to work here, or physical threats or backlash, I’m gonna take that and I’m gonna post it, and I’ll say this is happening because I’m saying I don’t think Israel should shoot children anymore and get away with it.”
Anwar echoes a similar sentiment, “I don't think we worry about the negative consequences it could have on our careers otherwise we wouldn’t be doing the work we are doing.”
When Vin graduated from school his career was moving in the direction he had envisioned. He started in videography, worked as a PA, and right before he set off to film this doc, he was already shooting A and B cam for giant sets and directors.
“I was doing shorts and music videos and social content for giant artists and big names in fashion. It was all good, but I wasn’t pushing any buttons. Then, somehow I decided to put that all on hold, to push… the biggest button of all time.”
The conversation shifted to some mutual friends and colleagues in the industry who — played the long game one could say, and arguably, were more strategic.
Eventually, he breaks in, “I’ve been vocal since the third grade. I’ve been Palestinian my whole entire life. I grew up in a post 9/11 era, so, I’m gonna always talk about certain things, the war in Iraq, for example.”
He admits that, consistently, since he has had social media he has been posting about Palestine and yes. sometimes people do tell him, “Yo, you should stay away from that one.”
Having only just met Vin, my first impression is that he’s a homie and a scholar with real conviction. “The main reason I got into filmmaking is because we are only here for a certain amount of time,” he says. “You leave something behind. This is what I wanna leave behind. Arguably what should have been my last film, is my first, and I went into it with that.
“There will be times when I say 'I wish this person didn’t follow me 'cause I said this and there is that, and it’s gonna be a bit uncomfortable.' But it doesn’t outweigh why I did it,” Vin says.
“I’m very excited about this film,” Anwar adds. “Hopefully Vin and I can work together on more projects.”
Vin seems to be on the same page, with plans to keep pumping the pipeline of Palestinian storytelling.
“This the beginning of the global intifada, for real,” Vin says defiantly. “The electronic intifada. The cinematic intifada. We are all gonna make all these things.”
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin is an Emmy-nominated journalist, producer and actor. He recently left his position as a Senior Presenter for AJ+ where he produced award-winning documentaries focused on social justice and human rights. Previously Ahmed worked as a reporter and producer for Al Jazeera English, as well as for The New York Times, The Huffington Post and PBS. Ahmed is widely known for creating and co-hosting Al Jazeera English’s flagship program ‘The Stream".
Follow him on Twitter: @ASE