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Event details

Insurgent Transmissions is a film series highlighting the varied Palestinian experience. Made by contemporary Palestinian makers, the films depict the many ways that Palestinians resist occupation in their daily lives and filmmaking practices. Beginning with Annemarie Jacir’s touching family drama, Wajib, the programming will unfold as a series of transmissions: Jacir chooses the second film, and each subsequent filmmaker will select the next film in the series. The films in Insurgent Transmissions highlight the works of contemporary Palestinian filmmakers, amplifying their voices through their films and the films they see as most urgent in this moment of cultural erasure and genocide.

This monthly series is presented by Mizna at Bryant Lake Bowl. Ticket fees go towards supporting the featured Palestinian filmmakers. Online tickets are $10, in-person tickets are sliding scale of $5–15. Additional opportunities to support urgent grassroots fundraisers in Gaza will be available at the screening.

NOVEMBER SCREENING

On November 6, 2024 at 7pm, join us for a screening of The Roof by Kamal Aljafari and Ambience by Wissam Aljafri. In addition to ticket fees going to support the featured Palestinian filmmakers, we will be raising money for Middle East Children’s Alliance’s efforts in Gaza, an initiative which has been responding to the urgent needs of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

ABOUT THE FILMS

The Roof by Kamal Aljafari
This deceptively quiet film presents a portrait of Aljafari’s family in Ramleh and Jaffa that hovers between documentary and cinematic memoir, guided by a nimble camera moving calmly but ceaselessly around the rooms of homes inhabited, damaged and ruined. 

The title refers to the roof missing from the house where Aljafari’s family resettled in 1948, a home unfinished, an incomplete construction project. The use of stillness and off-screen space creates a sense of suspension, of time spent waiting, of aftermath, of lives lived elsewhere. 

Aljafari’s striking use of his “cast,” his family, reveals the influence of Bresson’s use of nonprofessional actors as models whose performances emanate from their presence, not from acting.

Ambience by Wissam Aljafri
Despite the noise and chaos of the refugee camp, two young Palestinian refugees discover a creative way to record music in order to meet a competition deadline.