The sounds of explosions shook the Jordanian capital, Amman, on a sad Wednesday evening, after an explosion in one of its hotels.

Millions of people watched the news at the time on television channels, awaiting the outcome of what happened.

Meanwhile, in a small house in Tulkarm, a boy under the age of 17 was sitting, following in silence what was happening in the nearby country, and among the victims at that time one name stopped him and his impact extended to the next in his life.

International director Mustafa Al-Akkad, the owner of my masterpieces "Omar Al-Mukhtar" and "Al-Risala", is the victim of the explosion and the lasting impact on the life of Amin Al-Nayfa, the Palestinian director, and the latest talent cluster coming from the occupied lands, to win prizes with his first feature film "200 meters".

Pride mixed with tears when Nayfa stood on the stage to receive the award of the El Gouna Festival. He said, "I dedicate these prizes to the spirit of Siti (my grandmother) who was () deprived (of) her because of the wall."

Despite the prior knowledge of the winning news and the advance preparation of the word that will be said upon receiving the awards for the El Gouna Festival, all this did not prevent the young man in his thirties from crying.

The Audience Award, the Cinema for Humanity Award, and the Best Actor Award are three prizes won by the first long experience of most film makers, as the El Gouna Awards were not the first for 200 meters, the Audience Award was preceded by the Audience Award at the Venice Festival, and tears did not leave Oyoun Al Nayfa, so he deserved what he said His father told him in a phone call after the end of El Gouna, "I am proud of you, but (sad) from you .. 100 times I told you not to cry."

The tears of Al-Nayfa on the El Gouna platform and before her Venice are not a weakness or even joy, but they are the tears of nostalgia that he documented twice, the first in his short film "Al-Obour", which tells his personal story, and his suffering in reaching his sick grandmother who lives on the other side of the wall, and the second documentation was The deepest suffering of an entire people is separated from each other by the wall, which extends at a distance of 850 km, separating the West Bank and Ramallah, through the story of Mustafa who is stuck on the other side and withholds him from his family 200 meters, and a wall that requires a special permit to cross every time.

Mustafa refuses to obtain the Israeli identity card as a 48-year-old Arab, and Al-Nayfa, who was born in an Israeli hospital, also proves his birth certificate, which was sufficient for him to obtain the ID, along with compensation for the health and social insurance he missed, a comfortable life and a hassle-free transportation.

Passion born from resistance

Director Amin Al-Nayfa says - in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that "for 7 years, the film 200 meters has been my passion. I am working on it starting in 2013, with producer Mai Odeh," as he was deprived of accompanying his grandmother in her last days because of the wall. All he could get was an 8-hour pass that he spent with her until she died in his hands.

Cinema was not Nayfeh's passion since his childhood, but the siege made it the only art available, and his older brother made it pure pleasure when he opened his eyes to serious worlds in the history of cinema, as he was never impressed with the action, excitement and adventure films that were shown in theaters in the nineties and early The second millennium.

Amin was known for the masterpieces of the seventh art, and was dazzled by the 100 most important films in the history of cinema.

And when the world was preoccupied with what is happening in Iraq after its invasion, ignoring the occupied land and its resistance, the Palestinian director knew that cinema is a tool for informing the world about the issue, and that the effect of the silver screen is stronger than hundreds of words.

The cinema, which became the first desire of a high school student, was not the same for his family, and his sister, who was among the top 10 in the West Bank in high school, and won a scholarship to study medicine, and he is next in the study series and he has to complete what his sister started, especially that he is excelling in studies, and the family dreams for him To become a doctor or engineer.

But the boy's desire is neither medicine nor engineering, as he loves cinema and art.

Nayfeh says to Al-Jazeera Net, "When I told my family that I wanted to study cinema, everyone objected, saying where did you get that idea, and what will cinema and directing make for you and this nonsense?"

No one expected that the Palestinian youth would reach the stage of international festivals, and that the suffering of occupied Palestine would be his first cause and his only dream.

Lack of funding and normalization

Every first experience has difficulties, after which all the experiences will be reduced, but Nayfeh and Odeh did not expect that the difficulties of production will last for a full 7 years.

Limited grants and weak funding, shortcomings even from the owners of the case, and trembling portrayals that fear the grip of the occupier, and with the approaching end of the word, the Corona pandemic has put a new obstacle to financing the film.

Al-Nayfa explained the effects of the global closure due to "Covid-19" on his first film 200 meters. He said, "We finished filming in 2019, but the editing stages were taking place in Egypt, and I traveled from Egypt a few days before the closure, and there were still stages of mixing, music and colors that we were running through "Zoom" application, and I did not even see the final version of the film until it was shown in Venice, and there I was watching the film and writing down my notes on the presented version to fix it in a new version, which was what happened in the version that was shown in El Gouna. "

The coincidence of the timing of the film’s release with the waves of normalization that swept the Arab countries was a blow to Nayfeh’s chest. The Palestinian youth said to Al Jazeera Net that he accepts that politics has many faces, and that countries like Egypt and Jordan with their history of wars with the enemy had to come to a formula No normalization.

He added, "But what harms the Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan? So the people of the Zionist entity will have what we are not allowed to do. 200 meters told the story of the wall that separates the Palestinians from each other inside their homeland, but he did not know that at some point the enemy will succeed in building another wall separating them." The occupied lands and the Arabs. "

Palestinian director Amin Al-Nayfa depends mainly on the human story for his films (Al-Jazeera)

I will not live in the mantle of festivals

Planning for the next films in Nayfa's career depends mainly on the human story.

Amin says - to Al-Jazeera Net - that his success in the movie 200 meters is due to his identification in the event and his coexistence with all its details, which is difficult to achieve in all upcoming films.

But searching for a human story that can dive into all its details, to convey it literally to the viewer is what he is looking for, stressing that he is about to choose between two stories, both of which carry human dimensions related to identity and the value of life.

Al-Nayfa adds that he hopes that Yahya Al-Fakharani and Gamal Suleiman will participate in his next work.

Al-Nayfa does not want to remain in the mantle of festivals movies like other Palestinian filmmakers, as he does not overlook the importance of the box office and the taste of the Arab audience.

So he would like to combine the two Hassin, so he tells Al-Jazeera Net, "I am not looking for the elite audience, and I think that the 200-meter film achieves the difficult equation when it is shown in Palestine. What is shown in theaters in the West Bank are Egyptian films only, because they are able to attract viewers, and I think That 200 meters will have the same ability, and at least it will revolutionize the type of audience who watch festivals movies. "