Bearing witness from the imperial core: Film as a lens on life with a disability under occupation and genocide

Ramzi Maqdisi’s film Defying My Disability (2016) tells the story of seven Palestinian youth with disabilities living in the West Bank and Gaza in 2012, and the ways in which they managed their everyday lives under occupation and apartheid. Here, we introduce the participants and explore the film in the context of the current genocide. We reflect on our conversations with the filmmaker about making the documentary and screening it just weeks after the Al Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, along with his account of trying to communicate with the participants in Gaza since that time.