12: Kamal Aljafari

31 March, 2017 - 22:15
Sphinx cinema

 

 

SELECTION 2017

A dialogue between new audiovisual works, older or rediscovered films and videos by artists and filmmakers who work in the expanded field of moving image practice.

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Recollection

Kamal Aljafari
,
DE, PS
,
2015
,
HD
,
70'

Recollection utilizes footage from Israeli films as raw material for exploring, reconstructing, and sharing the inaccessible history of his hometown Jaffa: “For many years, I have been collecting Israeli fiction films shot in Jaffa as early as 1960. These are films in which Palestinians are disappeared, yet also exist at the edge of frames, visible in traces. Preserved also is a city; alive again in moving images, its gradual destruction over the decades chronicled film by film. From the footage of dozens of films I have excavated a whole community and recreated the city. Though out-of-focus, half-glimpsed, I have recognized childhood friends, old people I used to say good evening to as a boy; my uncle. I erased the actors, I photographed the backgrounds and the edges; and made the passersby the main characters of this film. In my film, I find my way from the sea, like in a dream. I walk everywhere, sometimes hesitant and sometimes lost. I wander through the city; I wander through the memories. I film everything I encounter because I know it no longer exists. I return to a lost time.” (Kamal Aljafari)