by Prachi Bari

on Film Fest Report

︎︎︎Source

A Fidai Film (Dir. Kamal Aljafari, Germany, 78 min, 2024)

In his latest film, A Fidai Film, Kamal Aljafari uses stolen archival footage to craft a poignant and experimental narrative that vividly depicts the tumultuous history of Palestine and delivers a powerful critique of oppression and loss.

As part of the Constellations segment at the 28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, renowned filmmaker Kamal Aljafari’s latest film, A Fidai Film, was screened to a fully packed auditorium in the beautiful city of Jihlava. The screening was followed by a discussion hosted by Kino Palestine, sparking significant conversation about the current situation in Palestine.

This one-hour-and-eighteen-minute film is based on lost memories and footage from archives, interspersed with stories of lost cinematic images. Taking the Israeli army’s 1982 invasion of Beirut and the subsequent looting of the Palestinian Research Center‘s archive as a premise, Aljafari uses these elements to create a counter-narrative that reclaims and restores the stolen memories of Palestinian history, telling the story of Palestine before 1982 through a poignant blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques.

Using archival footage from the Ministry of Defense that included Palestinian books, photographs, and films, Aljafari recreates a new timeline. He obliterates the commentaries in red, using bold text for the film’s title, to create a celluloid collage that serves as his voice against political defiance and for creative liberty.

During the political unrest of the Lebanese Civil War in 1982, more than 3,000 civilians were murdered by a right-wing militia coordinated with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Residents in the Sabra neighborhood and Shatila refugee camps were killed in cold blood. Israel’s goal was to dismantle the Palestinian Liberation Organization. During the atrocity, leaders from the organization fled to Libya. The IDF later raided the Palestine Research Center, stealing thousands of books, newspapers, press clippings, microfiches, and films from its comprehensive archive. The stories, identities, and images of the Palestinian people were stolen by their oppressors. The film sheds light on these massacres and highlights the loss of stories and identities.

Using archival footage, the director shows timelines between the Nakba in 1948 and the looting in the 1980s. The documentary is unconventional in its weaving of stories from different timelines, compiling his own archive and overlapping it with drawings in bright blood-red color over the images and text, to strike back against Israel’s censorship.

Sound in this film is also an effective tool. Aljafari uses compositions and texts of Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani instead of concentrating on interviews alone. The sound mix echoes with ambient sounds and disturbing effects that accompany the erratic images, making the audience sit back and notice the impact on the citizens. This enhances the film’s importance as a strong source of archival material on Palestine’s struggle.



We are delighted to be reporting live from the 2024 Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, running from October 25th to November 3rd, 2024.