Found

"Palestine: Interior/Exterior"

Watching Kamal Aljafari’s astonishing film The Roof (2006)—a work at once explicitly personal, coolly contemplative, and full of coruscating protest—is to recognize a marvelously intuitive artist and the momentum of a larger cinematic movement at the same time. In its hour-long exploration of two Palestinian family homes inside Israel, that of Aljafari’s parents’ house in Ramleh and his grandmother’s house in Jaffa, The Roof recalls the social-psychological landscapes and formal strategies of such filmmakers as Elia Suleiman, Hany Abu-Assad and Rashid Masharawi without ever feeling merely derivative of them. Rather, The Roof registers a potent new cinematic voice while offering more proof that today’s Palestinian cinema is one of the most vital anywhere.

topics: bay area, directors, experimental film, kino21, political film