Occupied | Series

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

By Pranav Pingle | Director

I am Pranav Pingle, a filmmaker from Hyderabad, India, and the founder of Mirage Media.

I made Occupied at a time when Palestine was spoken about endlessly — yet rarely understood. Everyone seemed to have an opinion, a judgment, a political position. What was missing, almost entirely, was lived experience. Very few people had actually gone there, spent time with Palestinians, listened without filters, or seen them beyond the labels imposed on them.

The media I encountered was deeply biased — not only in what it showed, but in what it consistently chose not to show. Palestinians were almost always framed through violence, anger, or ideology. Hardly anyone spoke about them simply as people — people with families, humour, creativity, dignity, fear, hope, and kindness. I realised that no one had made a film that allowed them to exist on screen as human beings first.

That is why I went.

I wanted to meet people without judgment — not as symbols, not as political arguments, not as headlines — but as artists, musicians, poets, dancers, and ordinary individuals trying to live meaningful lives under extraordinary and brutal circumstances. Through their art, I saw not hatred, but resilience; not revenge, but protest; not despair, but an insistence on life.

Occupied was my attempt to show Palestinians as people like you and me — people fighting for their lives not only through resistance, but through kindness, imagination, and creativity. I did not set out to be popular. I set out to be honest. For me, making this film felt like the right thing to do.

Then came October 7 — and the atrocities that followed.

After witnessing the scale of destruction, civilian deaths, and collective punishment that unfolded, filmmaking alone no longer felt sufficient. I could not return with a camera, but I could still show up as a human being. I chose to volunteer with the Red Crescent, to help in whatever small way I could. Looking away was not an option.

What is being human, if we turn away when our fellow human beings are being killed and tortured? What are we, if we cannot stand up for what is right?

I come from a place — personally and culturally — where doing the right thing matters more than being accepted. I do not measure my work by applause or approval. I measure it by whether I showed up when it mattered. I would make Occupied again. And again. And again.

Because this film was never only about Palestine.

It is about what we choose to see — and what we choose to ignore.
It is about voices screaming into a world that can hear them clearly —
and still chooses to look the other way.

This film is for Palestine.

For those whose suffering is visible, undeniable, and ongoing —
yet treated as background noise.

Occupied exists to say this plainly:

When injustice is this loud, silence is not neutral. It is a choice.

If being human means anything at all, it is the courage to listen —
to refuse indifference,
to stand witness,
and to look at another human being and say: your life matters.

Occupied is my refusal to look away.