With Hasan in Gaza

Co-presented by the Arab Film & Media Institute (AFMI)!

In 2001, filmmaker Aljafari, briefly imprisoned in his teens by the Israeli Occupation during the first Palestinian Intifada of 1989, set out on a north-to-south tour of Gaza in search of a man he’d met while behind bars, bringing along a local guide, Hasan, and a MiniDV camera with which to document his journey. Some two decades later, Aljafari revisited the footage he’d captured, and from it sprang this plaintive, lyrical travelogue, a loving record of cities, neighborhoods, and gathering places since reduced to rubble, of people whose current fates are unknown. Not a work of “nostalgia” for bygone times—incoming ordinance was a reality a quarter century ago, and the subjects of With Hasan in Gaza all seem to have their stories of savage raids and worse—but a work that brims with its maker’s affection for all that he sees and shows.

“Aljafari crafts a film about resilience and about love. A film that centers on community and family, finding strength in this communion despite all the horrors that must be endured” — RogerEbert.com

“The film is both a document of a precise historical moment and testament to the continuity of Palestinian memory and struggle” — Slant Magazine