A devastating reflection on Palestinian dispossession
An introspective documentary about the suppression and erasure of Palestinian history. Constituted from an assemblage of archival footage taken from Beirut’s Palestine Research Centre, which was seized and looted during Israeli occupation in 1982, the film’s essence is emblematized by the translation of its title: ‘one who dedicates his life to a cause.’
An important and devastating meditation on the history of Palestine, A Fidai Film is an experimental documentary which resists the conventions of genre by presenting fragmented sequences of archival footage without context, chronology, or narrative. The amalgamation of ambient and non-diegetic auditory elements heightens the film’s urgency, while images are spliced with writings from the Palestinian author and activist Ghassan Kanafani.
“A Fidai Film is at once a political, artistic, and salvaging endeavour of reclaiming national memory and identity through copies of original archival materials, which have been captured by the power willing to erase their existence.” Aleksandra Biernacka, www.moderntimes.review, 27/07/2024
« Comment le cinéaste a-t-il pu créer, à partir d’archives récupérées, une œuvre épique imprégnée d’une telle intimité, d’un tel sentiment de profondeur insondable ? »
Mike Hoolboom Panorama-Cinema 18/09/2024
Renaud Victor Award, Ciné+ Competition, Festival International de Cinéma de Marseille, 2024, fr
Grand Prix — Agnès, Festival en Ville, 2025, be
Jury Prize in the Burning Lights International Competition, Visions du Réel International Film Festival Nyon, 2024, ch
Emerging Cinematic Vision, Camden International Film Festival, 2024, us
International Feature Award, Dokufest International Documentary and Short Film Festival, 2024, us
Best Film, Lima Alterna International Film Festival, 2024, pe
Kamal ALJAFARI
Kamal Aljafari is a Palestinian filmmaker and visual artist known for experimental documentary cinema. A graduate of Cologne’s Academy of Media Arts, Aljafari has held teaching positions at The New School in New York and Berlin’s Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie. His practice has been supported by numerous fellowships, including Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute (2009-2010) and Columbia University’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination (2024-25). His feature-length documentary, A Fidai Film (2024), screened at major festivals worldwide and garnered fifteen international awards.
