Kamal Aljafari 2020, 80 ′ World premiere International Burning Lights Competition Visions du Réel Following an act of vandalism, the filmmaker's father decides to install a surveillance camera to record the scenes unfolding in front of the house. Everyday family life, the neighbours going to work, and the children at school, An Unusual Summer captures fleeting moments of poetry whereas, in the background, the daily choreography of the Arab district—that no one some name the “ghetto”—of Ramla, in current Israeli territory, comes to the surface. Composing with this visual material of low-definition aesthetics, finely punctuated with sound effects, Kamal Aljafari creates a mechanical diary of a life that scrolls past the window and succeeds with patience and infinite grace in transfiguring a ‘film à dispositif' based on a security device into a personal and eminently political fresco. “In the distant past, many years ago, in front of this house, there stood a fig tree in a garden, which has now vanished, bulldozed into memory, and swept up by History and Time.” Emilie Bujès

80 minutes
Kamal Aljafari
Experimental
2020 - Palestine
Toronto Premiere

Following an act of vandalism, the filmmaker's father decides to install a surveillance camera to record the scenes unfolding in front of the house. Everyday family life, the neighbours going to work, and the children at school, this experimental film captures fleeting moments of poetry; whereas in the background, the daily choreography of the Ramla (a Palestinian city in Israel), comes to the surface. Composing with this visual material of low-definition aesthetics, finely punctuated with sound effects, Kamal Aljafari creates a mechanical diary of a life that scrolls past the window and succeeds with patience and infinite grace in transfiguring a ‘film à dispositif' based on a security device into a personal and eminently political fresco. “In the distant past, many years ago, in front of this house, there stood a fig tree in a garden, which has now vanished, bulldozed into memory, and swept up by History and Time."

Past Festivals
Visions du Reel Nyon
Viennale Film Festival Vienna
Seville European Film Festival
Black Canvas Contemporary Film Festival Mexico

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