Salah isn't a difficult man to pick out of a crowd. His copious curly hair and striking blue-green eyes give him away almost instantly. He's tall and wiry, and immediately warm and kind. You get the sense quite quickly that he's a deep thinker who's got a lot to say and yet is a man of few words. He prefers to let his films speak for him.
Salah grew up in Battir, the fourth of five children. He studied hard at the Hassan Mustafah School and loved geography and running. After graduation and with the encouragement of his family, he began to study nursing in Ramallah. While pursuing an education in nursing would provide him with good opportunities for employment, eventually, Salah found that his heart wasn't in it. He left Ramallah and after some time away from school, decided to pursue his passion for cinema at Dar al-Kalima University.
This decision, while difficult, was also a pivotal moment for Salah. He's a man who understands and respects the society, culture, and traditions from which he has come. His values and virtues of his family and community are written in him and are as undeniable as his own fingerprints. Salah finds value in self-examination. He believes in the importance of holding one’s experiences, beliefs, and practices up to the light, viewing them from all sides, asking questions, and offering critique. Ultimately, this practice of critical thinking was valuable for Salah because it allowed him to choose how he wanted to enter the world. He decided for himself what it meant for him to be an artist, to be Palestinian, to be Salah.
This practice of critical thinking is one of the great opportunities Salah and his classmates are offered at Dar al-Kalima University. Here education goes beyond memorization, listening to lectures, and being able to recite given information. Here, Salah is asked “What do you think” and therefore required to engage with his coursework in an entirely different way. Knowing that he will be asked about his personal responses and opinions has allowed Salah to see the world with new eyes. In his case, these are the eyes of a filmmaker.
Salah has a passion for storytelling and creating dialogue around social issues, which he hopes can affect positive change in his community. His films cover a wide variety of topics; from occupation, gender justice, and ineffective healthcare. As Salah says, they tell the stories of his friends and neighbors and point out real issues that challenge Palestinians every day. Salah isn't afraid of being provocative, and his goal with each film is to introduce his audience to a new idea or perspective. His films are perhaps the truest reflection of himself. Like him, they are mostly silent, and somehow, without words convey everything you need to know. Salah’s own thoughts and beliefs about the world he lives in, as well as his hope for the world he imagines can be witnessed in each and every frame, as clearly and poignantly as the images themselves. Through his art, Salah continues his practice of observation and inquiry. Through cinema, he invites his audience to examine long-held ideas and traditions, to think critically about them, and together, to choose the way forward.
Salah’s films are his voice. They are his contribution to the larger conversations happening in his society about how positive change can occur, and how the community may forge ahead. They are the way he chooses to enter the world. He dreams of becoming a director after graduating from Dar al-Kalima and making feature films. Regardless of where his path may take him, one thing is for certain; this kind, passionate, intelligent young man has a bright future ahead. He will continue to be a voice for social change, dream for himself and his community, and use his talent to tell stories worth sharing. That is who Salah is.
