07/08/2025 - The Palestinian director explains the peculiar circumstances which led to him turning some lost tapes of life in Gaza in the early 2000s into a film

(© Elia Bianchi)

Cineuropa sat down with Kamal Aljafari to discuss his film, With Hasan in Gaza [+see also:
film review
interview: Kamal Aljafari
film profile], which has been selected to screen within the 78th Locarno Film Festival’s Competition. Having previously authored A Fidai Film [+see also:
film review
interview: Kamal Aljafari
film profile] and Recollection [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the director explains the peculiar circumstances which led to him discovering this material and how he turned it into a film.

Cineuropa: In the end credits, we see that the film was “conceived of” but not “directed” by you. 
Kamal Aljafari: I’ve been using this term recently, because I think “conceiving”, in the sense of “putting together”, “collecting” and “finding” material, is a more appropriate way of describing what I do. My previous work, A Fidai Film, was made with archival footage that I pulled together. I also found the material for With Hasan in Gaza, and I filmed it too, many years ago, but it’s an archival process, right? Directing sounds a bit awkward in that context, in my opinion.

You shot it, but you say it’s “the first film which you’ve never made”. Can you tell us a bit more about what that means? And also, how did you find the footage and how much of it did you use?
I came across it about a year ago, totally by chance. I was looking at MiniDVs of my first film, shot in Palestine in 2004. As I was looking at it and organising the tapes in order to digitise them, I found one labelled: “With Hasan in Gaza” in Arabic. Initially, I thought someone had given it to me. I went to the company where I wanted to digitize the tapes, and I asked them to put this tape in their player. It got stuck. An employee told me to come back the following day – they’d have to open the player and fix the tape. The next day, they let me watch it and I recognized Gaza, but I still didn’t know what the material was, until I’d seen myself in this footage in a scene where I’m handing the camera to a guide named Hasan and asking him if he can film me. I slowly started remembering going there. However, as strange as it might sound, I still don’t remember having shot all this material, apart from one particular part. I remember filming a night scene at Hasan’s place, where I stayed overnight in his children’s room. One of the reasons I don’t remember shooting it is probably because I never actually viewed the material, I just took it with me to Germany where I was studying. I watched it for the first time a year ago. In total, I found three tapes: one with a label, and two without. Overall, it accounted for around two hours and forty minutes of material, and the final film is one hour and forty-six minutes. I quickly realised it’s a film which I shouldn’t edit, or change the order of the shots, I just removed some of them. I found it in the form in which I filmed it. It made sense to release it like that, too.

When you say you don’t remember filming most of it, it makes sense that the film makes for a slightly eerie viewing experience. You already said, when discussing your previous film, that “Palestinians exist not only as a physical presence but as ghosts, too”.
I think the ghostly aspect of this film is firstly related to the fact that when we watch it, we know that none of it exists anymore. We wonder about the fate of all these people, all these children. Also, I think that, by nature, photography and filmmaking is a ghostly medium, because you capture time, you freeze time. It's something that outlives humans. You see people who are no longer with us if you have their pictures or films - they exist through them. It poses a question around the relationship between photography, film and memory. In the case of Gaza, it creates such a strong impression because none of that exists anymore. I also feel like I’m visiting my younger self when I watch the film. Discovering this material was a real miracle. I still can’t believe I found it.

Which parts of the final product affected you the most?
When we did a test screening in the cinema, before sending the film to Locarno, the most touching moment that made me cry was the scene where the girl is telling me to take a picture of her, but I can’t find her. It says so much about the people there, who were forgotten. Today, the wider public knows more about Gaza and Palestine, but the people of Gaza have been living in these conditions for almost 77 years, and had been totally forgotten. When I filmed in 2001, Gaza was already an open-air prison and it’s shocking that the world allowed that to continue. Ultimately, that’s what made the Israelis commit their genocide and what’s allowed them to get away with it, right up to the present day. I think the whole world is responsible for this, not just the countries that support them militarily and economically.

It's very sad to see, because we live in Europe and we say: “never again”. But it is happening “again”. And now it’s time to take a strong stand over it, because the consequences of the ongoing genocide and colonisation of Palestine will be borne by the whole world and are going to affect everybody. I’ve given a longer answer than you asked for, but I think it's really important to understand the emotional impact of what we see in the film.