( CNN ) -- I come from Palestine . I have lived my entire life under military occupation , and I have no memory of a time without struggle . I have seen my neighbors beaten , blindfolded , and kidnapped . I have seen children snatched from their mothers in the dead of night . I have seen my brother shot and friend murdered . I ca n't tell you how this holy land felt before the armored jeeps ' rumble . I ca n't trace a path from here -- from where the Wall surrounds me -- to the sea . But for as long as I can remember , I could not forget . Forget the checkpoints , the harassment , the detentions . Forget that I am not free . Like all prisoners , my memories are what sustain me . But what I need now are new memories . Happy memories . That 's why I started filming . I wanted to make memories of my son , Gibreel . I wanted to capture his smile , to chronicle his life in close-up . I wanted to crop out the occupation , the violence , the hopelessness . You know the scenes . Maybe you , too , have captured your loved ones ' firsts : the first words , the first steps , the first glimpse of that way he angles his head and grins . Just like his mother . Soraya 's gentle voice is in so many scenes of our son 's early life . But as I continued filming , Gibreel taught me that there are other sounds more urgent in his world . Read more : How a boy 's death brought a West Bank cinema back to life . His first words were `` army '' and `` wall . '' His first steps were in the shadow of groaning bulldozers and screeching cranes . Not the kind children play with . The kind that build the colonies that are stealing our land . Our land is Bil'in -- `` a little village on a hillside . '' That 's how the British described it a century ago , when we had already been there for many more . We are fewer than two thousand people , and we tend the land . We have no factories or office towers . There are no commuter trains or carpool lanes . For centuries , our walk to work has led through biblical fields of olive trees . Read more : Palestinian filmmakers beat the odds to hit silver screen . Then the colonists came . They are -- we hear -- English , French , Swiss , American . Some say there are 50,000 or more . They use our precious water to wash their cars and fill their swimming pools . They seem to thirst for pavement , cold steel , and concrete . And when they were n't satisfied with what they had already stolen , they came looking for more . They came looking in Bil'in . That 's when our families stood up and said , `` No . '' We did so peacefully , but persistently , through nonviolent protest against the Wall cutting through our land . Throughout , our only power was our conviction . And that conviction drew others -- English , French , Swiss , American . And Israelis . One of them is my friend Guy Davidi , who helped me make a film . Five cameras and as many years later , I invited the world to see scenes from my son 's first years-because the story of Gibreel 's early life is also the story of Bil'in 's resistance . The world calls it a documentary . I call it our story , a Palestinian story . In it , a farmer becomes a filmmaker , and a village stands taller than a Wall . Soon , this Palestinian story will contend for an award . It is a very big award , and many people will be watching . If it wins , what would I say ? How does a Palestinian , from a little village on a hillside , address the world ? I close my eyes and imagine the scene . There are a billion people , but I see just one . It is you , Gibreel . You are a man , perhaps my age now , looking back at the 35 years that brought you there . What will you see ? What will your world look like ? And if you had a camera , too , what memories would you make ? As the world listens , Gibreel , I want to say to you : I am from Palestine . I have lived my whole life under military occupation , and I have no memory of a time without struggle . But you , son , you will know better times . Someday , you will make new , happy memories . And that will be the true award . Emad Burnat is co-director of `` 5 Broken Cameras '' , which is nominated for best documentary at this year 's Academy Awards . His views expressed here are his own and not those of CNN .
Filmmaker Emad Burnat has lived in the West Bank under military occupation all his life . He started filming the early years of his son 's life alongside the resistance of his village . Now , his documentary `` 5 Broken Cameras '' is up for best documentary at the Oscars .