Dir. Kamal Aljafari
2015, Palestine, Germany and Lebanon, 70 min
Arabic and English with English subtitles
The Israeli and American features shot in the town of Jaffa from the 60s to the 90s are the basis for the history of a dream. All protagonists are removed from the original footage, leaving an empty setting formed by the town. Thus, the impossible is made possible from the “I” perspective, namely filming the past and compiling a picture album made of memories.
Presented in partnership with WNDX Festival of Moving Image.
“Kamal Aljafari’s experimental gesture is militant precisely because of the way he uses space. His intervention even in the space of the original films moves the city and its inhabitants from their positions in the background to the foreground of Aljafari’s work. The implicit reclaiming of space for the background is in keeping with the way the film credits are organized: neither the directors nor the titles of the original films are given, leaving space instead for the names of the previously marginalized people. Their history is told, and in the same gesture the places where these images were shot is described in a personal and poetic manner.” – Anaïs Farine, The Funambulist
