The Roof

<h2>Synopsis</h2> <p>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. </p> <p>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. </p> <p>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.</p> <h2>About the Director</h2> <p>Palestinian filmmaker and artist Kamal Aljafari is known for his distinctive approach to cinema. He studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and has held teaching positions at The New School in New York and the Deutsche Film-und Fernsehakademie in Berlin. He was awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University and most recently a fellowship at The Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris (2024–2025). As from September 2025, he is a resident at Académie des beaux-arts x Cité internationale des arts in Paris. His installation “The Camera of the Dispossessed” was shown at the 35th Bienal de São Paulo in 2023.</p> <p>Aljafari was also honored at IndieLisboa 2024 with a full retrospective of his work at the Portuguese Cinematheque as well as at the Madrid Spanish Cinematheque in 2025. The feature film “A Fidai Film” (2024) was shown in over hundred festivals and won around 10 international awards. His most recent work, “With Hasan in Gaza” (2025), premiered in the International Competition at Locarno Film Festival, where it was awarded with the Europa Cinemas Label. The film has received main awards at DMZ Docs, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, CINEMED, Festival dei Popoli and is currently shortlisted for the European Film Academy.</p>