The audience at the grand opening of the documentary was not the usual art crowd. More than 1,200 Palestinians including politicians, students and laborers crowded the main hall at the Red Crescent Society in al-Bireh Feb. 7 for the premiere of “Marwan,” a documentary about imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.

Before the screening, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, along with senior members of his Cabinet and top Fatah officials filled the front seats of the auditorium. Hamdallah called Barghouti an "icon” of Palestinian resistance. He expressed support for his immediate release, referring to the imprisoned leader as a genuine expression of Palestinian aspirations to live in peace. “He has served more than 20 years of his life in jail, and he has made this sacrifice for the dignity and the freedom of Palestinians,” he said.

Hamdallah added that President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership endorse the efforts of the Belgian parliament, which nominated Barghouti for a Nobel Peace Prize. In May 2016, the Belgian lawmakers praised Barghouti’s democratic principles, saying in a letter addressed to the Nobel Committee: “Marwan is an elected representative of the Palestinian nation, and was the first parliamentarian to be arrested. … He is a democrat defending human rights, notably women's rights.”

The idea for the documentary was conceived in Cairo, according to Raed Othman, the director of Maan News Aِِgency, the leading Palestinian wire service and television station that produced the film. Othman told Al-Monitor, “We were sitting in Cairo back in October 2015 with Fadwa, Marwan’s wife, as she was telling us about how the two of them met and I wondered, why not produce a documentary about Marwan?”