ALFILM BERLIN: Masterclass with Kamal Aljafari
The Organizers
ALFILM Festival - Berlin
Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker Kamal Aljafari has developed a unique style of storytelling and a compelling visual language that moves across genres, blending fictional and documentary elements. Works such as The Roof (2006), Port of Memory (2010), An Unusual Summer (2020), and Paradiso, XXXI, 108 (2022) have situated memories, personal histories, and encounters within a tragic continuum of loss inflicted on Palestinians since the Nakba, revealing legacies of structural violence and attempts at erasure. Aljafari has not only shed light on untold stories and suppressed narratives, but crucially demonstrated that being and living as a Palestinian inherently entails a stance on how and what to narrate—as well as the limits of doing so.
In this masterclass, Aljafari will reflect on his artistic journey and practice in light of his most recent film, A Fidai Film (2024). A particular focus will be decolonial engagements with archives and the possibilities of hijacking their representational logics and hegemonic structures. The masterclass is open to professional filmmakers, artists, and historians, as well as non-professionals interested in questions of power, image, and decoloniality.
The Masterclass will be moderated by Saleh Dabbah, a Palestinian Film critic, programmer, and cultural Journalist based in Berlin.
About Organizer
16th ALFILM - Arab Film Festival Berlin Taking place between the 23rd - 30th of April 2025 at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, City Kino Wedding, Kino in der KulturBrauerei, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, Wolf Kino, Spore Initiative and Gretchen, the 16th edition of ALFILM features a wide selection of feature films, documentaries, and short films, while masterclasses, panel discussions, talks, special screenings, and a closing party round off the varied programme. As in previous years, the festival promises audiences a cinematic experience of artistic merit and relevance to timely issues across two program sections. ALFILM Selection highlights the richness of the contemporary Arab cinema landscape with film productions from the past two years. In ALFILM Spotlight Canceled Futures, Endless Pasts: Speculative Fiction on and Archival Subversions of the (Post)colonial Condition, the genre of speculative fiction and the subversive use of the archive are at the centre of an artistic examination of the (post)colonial entanglements of the Arab region. Complete programme at https://alfilm.berlin/.
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