A Fidai Film
By Kit Macdonald
No cinema in Barcelona has done more than the Sants co-operative Zumzeig since October 2023 to advance the Palestinian cause and keep Palestinian cinema accessible. Among other Palestinian films screening there in June is last year's A Fidai Film, directed by Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari, a powerful experimental documentary that reclaims and reimagines Palestinian history through the lens of looted archives.
It centres on Israel's bloody 1982 invasion of Beirut, during which the Israeli army seized the entire archive – historical documents, photographs, films and more – of the Palestinian Research Centre. Aljafari uses these stolen materials to challenge colonial narratives and bring to life and light suppressed stories of the Palestinian people.