THE ROOF
by Kamal Aljafari
2006, 61 min, digital

“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.” –David Pendleton, HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE

Preceded by:
BALCONIES
2007, 7 min, digital
“An experimental short film that looks at all the balconies left unfinished in director Kamal Aljafari’s hometown of Ramla, in the central district of Israel. What are we to think when, to paraphrase García Lorca, our home is no longer our home?” –INDIELISBOA