ALFILM – Arab Film Festival Berlin & Wolf are honoured to present Kamal Aljafari’s A Fidai Film,  which recently won the Grand Jury Prize in the Burning Lights Competition at its world premiere during the Visions du Réel film festival. This event is commemorating 76 years of Nakba.* The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director at Wolf Studio.

In the summer of 1982, the Israeli army invaded Beirut. During this time, it raided the Palestinian Research Center and looted its entire archive. The archive contained historical documents of Palestine, including a collection of still and moving images. Taking this as a premise, A Fidai Film aims to create a counter-narrative to this loss, presenting a form of cinematic sabotage that seeks to reclaim and restore the looted visual memories of Palestinian history. It’s a poignant exploration of identity, memory, and resistance, told through a unique blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques. 

Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari confirms with his latest effort that he is one of the most important montage film auteurs of the moment – and that his deeply political approach to working with archives, which not only assumes a critical stance towards their “official” discourse but also direct interventions on the material, is the most effective method to illuminate the history of the Palestinian occupation, both in terms of the forced displacement of its population and the violent oppression suffered by those left behind, as well as the erasure of its memory and culture. – Filmsinframe.com

*This event is taking place 76 years and one day after the Nakba, which is commemorated on May 15th. Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948.