2026
Saturday 18 April
Day: Film screening
Cafe Oto
With Hasan in Gaza مع حسن في غزة
By Kamal Aljafari كمال الجعفري
Doors 1pm
Film 1.30-3.30pm
Three MiniDV tapes of life in Gaza from 2001 were recently rediscovered. This footage is now a testament to a place and time that no longer exists. What started as a search for a former prison mate from 1989 – a man lost to time and war – led to an unexpected road trip from the north to the south of Gaza with Hasan, a local guide whose fate remains unknown. As the camera moves through Gaza’s streets and landscapes, it records fleeting moments of everyday life – fragments of a reality now irreversibly altered. With Hasan in Gaza transforms this forgotten footage into a cinematic reflection on memory, loss and the passage of time, capturing a Gaza of the past and lives that may never be found again.
Director’s Note
An homage to Gaza and its people, to all that was erased and that came back to me in this urgent moment of Palestinian existence, or non-existence. It is a film about the catastrophe, and the poetry that resists.
This is my first film, which I have never made.
Credits
Conceived and directed by: Kamal Aljafari
in collaboration with: Hasan Elboubou
Camera & sound: Kamal Aljafari
Editing: Kamal Aljafari
Music: Simon Fisher Turner, Attila Faravelli
Color grading & compositing: Yannig Willmann
Assistant editing: Martin Arbelaez
Sound mixing: Jochen Jezussek
Executive producer: Flavia Mazzarino
Editing consultant: Benjamin Mirguet
Additional music: Lucy Railton
Title design: Toby Cornish
Tape digitisation: Crème (Ulf Wrede)
Other contributions: Alessandro Gagliardo, Hans Broich
Production: Kamal Aljafari Productions
Supported by Doha Film Institute, Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Gwaertler Stiftung, Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, Media City Film Festival’s Chrysalis Fellowship, Atelier 105 – Light Cone
2025 © kamal aljafari productions
Buy tickets from Cafe Oto:
Festival pass £30 advance
Saturday day - Film screening (Cafe Oto) £3 advance; £5 door
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Festival pass £60
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Your support helps us continue to offer discounted tickets to those who need them. Thank you!
Access:
Cafe Oto events take place on the ground floor, with step-free access and accessible, gender-neutral toilets.
We offer 2 for 1 tickets for guests’ carers.
We are more than happy to reserve you seats and/or space for a wheelchair.
To arrange any of the above, or if you have any questions to help make your visit more comfortable, please email us here.
Palestinian filmmaker and artist Kamal Aljafari كمال الجعفري is known for his distinctive approach to cinema. He studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and has held teaching positions at the New School in New York and the Deutsche Film-und Fernsehakademie in Berlin. He was awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University and most recently a fellowship at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris. He is a resident at Académie des beaux-arts x Cité internationale des arts in Paris. His most recent work, With Hasan in Gaza (2025), premiered in the International Competition at Locarno Film Festival, where it was awarded the Europa Cinemas Label. The film has received main awards at DMZ Docs, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, CINEMED and Festival dei Popoli, and is shortlisted for the European Film Academy.