Masterclass with Kamal Aljafari
ماستر كلاس مع كمال الجعفري
On Decolonial Film Practices and the Unmaking of the Archive
A Masterclass with Kamal Aljafari
> Friday 25.4.2025 | 19:30
Sinema Transtopia | Free Admission
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.
