After leaving his profession as a mechanical engineer to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a filmmaker, his first full-length feature film, Ajami, which he co-directed with Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jewish filmmaker, has won innumerable awards.While shot in only 23 days, the film took 14 months to edit and seven years to fund and write.Ajami is based on a true story about Palestinians who live in Jaffa amid the growing Jewish metropolis of Tel Aviv in a neighbourhood that has been gentrified, marginalised and oppressed.Like the Sao Paulo favela-based film, City of God, the film uses non-actors in a setting where violence and conflict is a daily reality.Copti talks to Al Jazeera about his film's success, representing Israel and the growth of Palestinian cinema.