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.

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