ENCOUNTERS 2024: A FIDAI FILM (with panel discussion)

Every year since our founding in 2010, The Bioscope has proudly hosted screenings of The Encounters South African International Documentary Festival. Now over 25 years old as a festival, Encounters returns to The Bioscope once again with screenings from 21 June - 30 July. Tickets are R80. For more information on the festival as a whole, please visit encounters.co.za

SEE THE FULL BIOSCOPE SCHEDULE FOR ENCOUNTERS HERE

A FIDAI FILM

Kamal Aljafari | Palestine/Germany/Qatar/Brazil/France | 2024 | 78 min

When the Israeli Defence force invaded Southern Lebanon in the summer of 1982, they stole the archive collection of photographs and film from Beirut’s Palestine Research Center. In this hypnotic and deftly constructed experimental film, Palestinian director and artist Kamal Aljafari reclaims these images, which have been stored for decades by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, reconstructing them into a narrative of fragmentation that is far more reflective of the region’s history than the one presented in western media. While its bewitching broken beauty is engaging on its own terms, A Fidai Film is fundamentally a political act that transcends the usual parameters of cinema, even as it is informed by a deep love for the form. By re-appropriating the archive – so filled with life, memories, and otherwise invisible histories – Aljafari counters the ongoing attempt to erase the visual and institutional memory of the region, and shows how the plundering of memory is central to the broader violence of imperialism.