For GRAZIA’s inaugural episode of Preserving Palestine, I invited Anwar Hadid and Vin Arfuso to join me as we discuss their documentary film, Walled Off, which will be released very soon. They also share their personal journeys of becoming outspoken activists for Palestine and what it was like to visit Palestine.
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One of the first things I noticed when speaking to Anwar and Vin, was their shared compassion. In the 1 hour and 30 minute conversation we had together, Anwar uttered the word ‘beautiful’ over 20 times. Whether he was describing the people he met during their trip to Palestine, his best friend Vin, or their film, through his lenses, Anwar sees everything as beautiful. And I don’t mean beautiful in terms of societal beauty standards or by appearances, I mean beauty from within. Perhaps it is because of his own values, ethics and compassion that his view of the world is so uplifting. Don’t get me wrong, naivety is not a characteristic trait that Anwar possesses, in fact it’s quite the opposite. He sees the evils that spew from politicians and the consequences of them. Not only does he see it, he’s acting on it.
Vin on the other hand, with his sarcasm and wit, speaks with no filters. It’s refreshing to hear him speak – at supersonic speed – so eloquently about a cause that is clearly deep to him. It’s evident that he doesn’t need to spend any time rehearsing before being asked to talk about Palestine, as the words always seem to be at the tip of his tongue.
What I admired the most about both of them was how humble and down-to-earth they were. “Me and Vin always have this joke that we’re just silly guys that just really have a lot of love in our hearts. And we believe that good things come when you do good things, and when you try from a pure place to create something that’s good,” shared Anwar. They also can’t help but take themselves out of the spotlight, not only by respectably admitting that the film “isn’t about them,” but also as they mention all the incredible people that supported them and helped pave their way to the making of the film. Even if the names they mention – including Lina Hadid, Mustafa Ahmed (also known as Mustafa the Poet) and the fellow Palestinians they met along the way – had the smallest parts to play along Anwar and Vin’s journey.
Their friendship is all thanks to Anwar’s cousin, Lina Hadid. “My cousin Lina is an amazing person. She is a freedom fighter. She’s a beautiful person, she’s dedicated I think her whole life, to doing whatever she can to give voices to Palestinian people,” he heartwarmingly shares. “She basically knew that me and Vin were both very passionate about what’s happening, and about Palestine, and she just wanted to unite us. We just met one day, we were in New York, had some coffee, hung out with a friend of mine, and we honestly just got on right away.”
The reason the two sparked a friendship is because of their fearless attitude to the Palestinian cause, as Vin points out, “as soon as him and I met, we realised there’s nothing that we’re going to be afraid of when it comes to this. We’re gonna do as much as we possibly can, without any fear from any work backlash, any friendship backlash, anything.” I couldn’t help but admit the deep respect I had for their bold attitude, as it’s more uncommon than not to find Palestinians that share their level of courage. It is a trait that every activist needs, but especially one advocating for Palestine.
It’s no secret that Palestinians have been shadow-banned on social media, threatened for protesting and interrogated at checkpoints. And Vin states a very valid point when it comes to the consequences any pro-Palestinian activist faces, “the consequences prove our point. So not only do we not fear these consequences, it makes our point. So if somebody is honest, and they’d say, ‘no, we don’t want you on this project, because you spoke up for the Palestinians,’ that’s fine. You should tell more people that you don’t want us on this because we called for basic human rights.”
The duo have worked on a documentary film together called Walled Off, which is entirely dedicated to sharing the plight of the Palestinian people with a wider audience, an American audience. The idea of creating a documentary first occurred to Vin years ago, and was one of the reasons he decided to study film. “I went to college and I took some documentary film classes, along with other classes, but documentaries were what I enjoyed the most, because it’s not fiction. These are movies that, if somebody has a situation that they feel is not being represented the right way, or wants to just represent in a different way, you’re able to do that through that medium of documentary filmmaking.”
It all started in 2016 when Vin messaged an Italian, pro-Palestinian activist named Eddie on Instagram saying he wanted to create a documentary on Palestine. “It’s funny, because I just saw that recently. And I didn’t even remember sending that. And now we have this documentary,” he reminisces. “So when I had first met Lina, I told her about this. This was not long after 2016. And then she was like, ‘well, you know, you need to meet my cousin Anwar, he’d be on board with that, 100%. He lives out in LA, and there’s filmmakers within arm’s reach, but none of them want to do that.’ As soon as we met each other, that was like, probably the first thing I brought up.”
Less than a year after they met, they decided to travel to Palestine with a few friends of theirs. “We all made the decision to actually head out there and just to see, with these ideas that we had, that Vin came to us with, but we also just wanted to go as our first time going to Palestine, to experience and to see and to learn what we should be doing and what we should be expressing and the voices that we should be amplifying and all these different things,” shares Anwar. What’s important to observe, is that they were unified in the idea that they wanted to hear and learn from the Palestinian people still living under occupation, about what they wanted and needed to portray to the outside world. “It’s greater than all of us, so we wanted to truly understand what the collective purpose and the collective consciousness mission is for the Palestinian people. And I think that we did, we learned as much as we could in the time that we went there, and we’re able to kind of put it into into the project.”
Vin undoubtedly agreed with Anwar’s point of view, adding that the goal of this project wasn’t to self-promote. “In the process of showing it to different producers and networks, their entire thing was, ‘oh, we need to see more of you and Anwar, that’s how we think we’ll get it sold, if we see more of you and Anwar on your journey.’ But it’s not about us. We are in it obviously, there’s parts you’ll see us. But it’s not about our personal journey and what we found and how we’re going to better ourselves, that would be counter productive to what we’re doing. Nobody needs to learn about him and I, they can if they want to you just follow us on Instagram. The entire goal was to go there and uplift their voices, as opposed to making it about us and our trip and what we really thought about. There’s enough about American kids and what they feel,” he humorously admits.
What is familiar to almost every Palestinian, is the role their families have played in inducing an activist gene by the stories shared. When I asked them at what moment of their lives they decided to dedicate their time, energy and resources to learning more about Palestine and raise awareness on their people’s ongoing struggle, it was clear that they were both influenced by their families. “Throughout my life I heard all the stories from my father and my teta, you know, just everyone in my family. I was hearing these stories, and I didn’t fully grasp what was happening, I didn’t really grasp the idea that basically, all these things are still happening, and the plight of the Palestinians is an ongoing fight, and that we’re still dealing with it today. I felt a little bit hopeless, in the sense of I felt like I really couldn’t do anything, to really help these people. And all I really wanted to do was to help,” Anwar admits. “So, I think at that time I met a lot of beautiful people, a lot of beautiful Palestinian people, a couple years after that. And then I met Vin through my cousin, Lina, and throughout those couple of years, which were formative years of my life in general, I kind of understood more and more what was happening there. And I realised that there was something that we could do, something Palestinians can do to continue on the fight of our ancestors and spread awareness and share the stories and not forget about what has happened.”
“And I realised that there was something that we could do, something Palestinians can do to continue on the fight of our ancestors and spread awareness and share the stories and not forget about what has happened.”
As for Vin, discovering his inner-activist also began when he would hear stories from his family, during which they contradicted everything he heard on the news. “I was kind of indoctrinated into it as a younger kid. I remember being in the first grade, I had older cousins who were very pro-Palestinian so I always heard it coming in and out of my grandmother’s house, family parties and just any time the news was on. It was like this was what we are. By and large, anytime Palestine was mentioned in the news it was something negative. I’d think to myself as I’d hear it, this is not the truth. This is a lie. Our family is not what they’re saying about us. Especially in mainstream media in the West. Even in the fourth grade I’d wear Palestine shirts. I was never afraid to voice it. I remember talking to a lot of my teachers, and then them calling my parents about it because I would take it a little too far. So I guess just from being in school, and having that traction, to always push against, it kind of forced me to keep going and going. I don’t know, if they thought that telling me ‘you shouldn’t talk about this’ was gonna make me not talk about it, it pushed it further.”
“I don’t know, if they thought that telling me ‘you shouldn’t talk about this’ was gonna make me not talk about it, it pushed it further.”
What’s important to note about the occupation of Palestine, is that people are often afraid to speak out about it because it is a ‘political’ situation. And whilst the 74 years of apartheid and ethnic cleansing may have started as a political issue, it is also – and foremostly – a humanitarian one. “And to us, we’re not getting involved in politics, although it’s a political situation. We’re getting involved in bringing voices to the voiceless, and because we have platforms, whatever his following may be, it would be a waste for us to know that we can show what’s happening to a situation that otherwise gets no attention. And if it gets any attention, it’s a lie, they’re lying,” shared Vin. Anwar concurred, “the fact that we grew up in the West, in America, we have so much privilege, and with that privilege comes responsibility. It feels a little bit tired and sickening to just sit here and know more peace than our people have lived in for years, without doing anything and just sitting idle, so I think we both kind of made a decision that it’s bigger than all of us, it’s bigger than our careers. It’s bigger than our jobs. And if people can’t love us for speaking about our truth and the truth of our people. they’re not really worth being in our lives, and we don’t want the job, you know, we don’t want those things that come with us being idle.”
“And if people can’t love us for speaking about our truth and the truth of our people. they’re not really worth being in our lives, and we don’t want the job, you know, we don’t want those things that come with us being idle.”
Anwar Hadid and Vin Arfuso are undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with when it comes to fighting for freedom and justice for Palestinians around the world, and we can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next.
