TEHRAN -- The first press conference of the 14th Ammar Popular Film Festival (APFF) was held at the Palestine Museum of Contemporary Arts here Sunday amid the ongoing Israeli genocide against the people of Gaza.
Hamas representative Khalid al-Qadoumi and APFF secretary Sohail Asad attended the conference.
Ali Khalili, a Palestinian student in Iran, said Palestine is now at a turning point in history where before Operation Al-Aqsa Floods cannot be compared with after it.
“The Palestinian resistance movement has been completely successful in its operations,” he said.
Khalili said there is also a media war underway, adding when Hamas publishes a picture of the bravery of its fighters, such as setting fire to an Israeli bulldozer, the fear and terror of Israel and America is unprecedented.
The Hamas operation, he said, brought about an unprecedented change in the Palestinian issue.
“After Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, global empathy took shape around Palestine, and the world’s famous universities expressed their sympathy with Palestine and its people. That’s why Reuters news agency reported that the rallies in support of Palestine are seven times more than those in support of Israel.”
Ali Muhammad Moddab, a poet and one of the former APFF judges, said many people of culture and art, such as Naji al-Ali, Mustafa Akkad, Ghassan Kanfani and others have been martyred in the cause of Palestine, which befits the festival to focus on introducing these people.
Hamid Salehi, the executive secretary of the festival, new themes such as the new world order section has been added to this year’s festival. He said filmmakers can send their works to the secretariat until December 1.
Salehi said so far 2000 works have been sent to the festival’s secretariat. The main focus of the festival this year is videos sent by Palestinians, he said, adding more than 350 works clips have been sent to the secretariat so far.
“We invite all people, especially teenagers, to shoot videos with hand-held cameras or mobile phones and send them to the festival’s secretariat.”
Qadoumi cited a part of a Hollywood movie, which says “an idea cannot be killed”.
He said millions of people came to the streets in defense of Palestine in New York. “We believe that we should go after the truth to build a narrative, but the Israelis go after marketing.”
He touched on the recent meeting of 57 Arab-Islamic countries, saying nothing more than a statement came out of the meeting.
“While diplomacy has more effect than rockets, the leaders of these countries are not even willing to cut ties with the Zionist regime,” he said.
“There is no Arab ruler who dares to support Hamas or associated with it and no Arab ruler has taken a position in this regard, but the people of the world are alert and with the Palestinian nation,” Qadoumi added.
He said creating a narrative is primarily very important, and then marketing it essential.
“Today, the narrative of Palestinian children is not result of the media game, but the sympathy with the victims and rebuttal of falsehoods. Until now, we did not have an Islamic search engine, and on Google’s search page, before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the first search brought up Israel, but now the mass killing of the people of Gaza comes up.”
He said the beheading of children by Hamas is a big lie, adding French occupiers in Algeria cut off children’s heads and took pictures with them.
“The image of Americans with naked Viet Cong women is in our minds. Thank God we won on October 7, but today the oppressed victims are the cause of the enemy’s helplessness and the enemy’s only military achievement is the siege of hospitals,” he added.
Saeed Khorshidii, the head of APFF Policy Council, said the festival is the voice of the people who are censored and ignored.
“We consider it our duty to represent the ideals, concerns and issues of this group of people, who are not seen by the media.”