This screening is part of Filmfest Aachen 2025

A Fidai Film

2024, Palestine, 77 min, Kamal Aljafri, Arabic, NRW Premiere
Original version with english subtitles

+ Short Film:

Control Anatomy

Palestine, 2025, 17 min, Mahmoud Alhaj, Arabic
Original version with english subtitles

The word Fidai means freedom fighter or guerrilla. In this sense, the film itself becomes a guerrilla, resisting dominant cinematic forms and institutional narratives. During the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Palestine Research Center in Beirut was attacked. Its archives were looted and destroyed, erasing not just documents and footage, but a cultural memory. Kamal Aljafari's A Fidai Film emerges from this absence. Using fragments of stolen, scattered images, it builds a counter-archive,defying colonial erasure through the quiet force of imagery. Without slogans or speeches, the film reclaims memory through form; each frame becomes an act of resistance.

Mahmoud Alhaj's Control Anatomy complements this with a strong meditation on surveillance. Told in chapters with narration, it explores how technology maps, monitors, and disciplines the Palestinian body. Silence becomes its own language, echoing the muted existence under occupation.

The word Fidai means freedom fighter or guerrilla fighter. In this sense, the film itself becomes a guerrilla - a resistance against dominant cinematic forms and institutionalized narratives. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Palestine Research Center in Beirut was attacked. The archives were looted and destroyed - a cultural memory erased. Kamal Aljafari's A Fidai film emerges from this emptiness. From stolen, scattered images, he forms a counter-archive that defies colonial erasure. Without slogans or speeches, memory is reclaimed through form - each image a silent act of resistance.

Mahmoud Alhaj's Control Anatomy complements this with a haunting reflection on surveillance. Told in silent chapters, the film shows how technology is weaponized - Palestinian bodies mapped, monitored and disciplined. The silence speaks for the enforced silence under occupation.

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