With Hasan in Gaza

synopsis

Gaza is the largest prison in the world, at least according to the director, who returned here in 2001 to search for Abdel Rahim, with whom he had been imprisoned in Israel seventeen years earlier for anti-state activities. Another quarter of a century passed before he remembered the three videotapes he had made with his guide Hasan, but the Gaza he captured on them no longer exists. Nominated for the Golden Leopard in Locarno, this poetically poignant poem nostalgically presents forgotten images, implicitly interwoven with the events of October 2023. Vanished landscapes, streets, buildings, and human faces tell a story of memory, loss, and searching.

“At first I found myself reliving the feelings of adolescence. Then I suddenly lost the ability to imagine and images disappeared. Life became a prison.” — quote from the movie

biography

Kamal Aljafari (born 1972) is a Palestinian filmmaker and educator living in Berlin. He graduated from the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, where he made Visit Iraq (2003). This was followed by Balconies (2007) about his experience in an Israeli prison, and the films Port of Memory (2010), Recollection (2015), and UNDR (2024). His works combine documentary, fiction, and experimental film, focusing on the Israeli region of Jaffa. Ji.hlava IDFF screened his Fidai Film (2024) in 2024.

film details

director:	Kamal Aljafari
producer:	Kamal Aljafari
script:	Kamal Aljafari
photography:	Kamal Aljafari
editing:	Kamal Aljafari
music:	Simon Fisher Turner, Attila Faravelli
sound:	Kamal Aljafari
executive producer:	Flavia Mazzarino