PS/DE/QA/BR/FR 2025, D: Kamal Aljafari, 78’, OmeU, DCP
With the looting of the Palestine Research Centre in Beirut in 1982, Palestine’s visual memory came under Israeli archival control. Kamal Aljafari’s found-footage essay A FIDAI FILM responds to this loss with an act of cinematic sabotage, aimed at restoring colonised history. Through experimental deconstruction, he rewrites the stolen material: red lines disrupt the flow, figures are excised or replaced. This visual intervention breaks down the hegemonic power of interpretation and lays bare the layers of dispossession. The result is a powerful counter-archive – the “camera of the disenfranchised” as an aesthetic of resistance.
| Sat 12 September 2026 | Luru Kino |
| 8 PM | In presence of Flavia Mazzarino (producer and collaborator of Kamal Aljafari) € 7,50 (6,50 reduced) |
Kamal Aljafari (born 1972) is a Palestinian filmmaker. He has taught at The New School in New York and at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin. His achievements have been recognised with fellowships at the “Film Study Centre – Radcliffe Institute” at Harvard University and, most recently, at the “Institute for Ideas and Imagination” at Columbia University. He has directed a total of twelve short and feature films. A FIDAI FILM won the Grand Jury Prize at Visions du Réel in 2024. WITH HASAN IN GAZA received the Europa Cinemas Label Award at the Locarno Film Festival in 2025.
Making visible what seems to be missing from dominant narratives or is difficult to detect in them is a constant feature of Kamal Aljafari’s work. With his two most recent feature films, we are giving space to the subversive act of making the invisible visible. His works push the conceptual and formal boundaries set by conventional film aesthetics – they explore new territory in a political cinema, demanding, in the face of reality, a form of “cinematic justice” that goes far beyond objective historicism and didactic documentaries on social issues. In doing so, an artistic subjectivity preponderates here, whilst the idea of cinema as an instrument of colonisation and oppression is deconstructed. At the same time, we see how Aljafari explores the potential for reappropriation of found footage and dives head first into a wide variety of archival materials, always accompanied by a precise, rigorous sound design. His cinematic practice functions as an act of resistance. To enable a deeper immersion into the visual and conceptual worlds of the films, his long-standing collaborator and producer, Flavia Mazzarino, will be present.
| Sat 12 September 2026 Luru Kino | |
| 6 PM | WITH HASAN IN GAZA PS/DE/FR/QA 2025, D: Kamal Aljafari, 106’, OmeU, DCP In presence of Flavia Mazzarino (Producer and collaborator of Kamal Aljafari) |
| 8 PM | A FIDAI FILM PS/DE/QA/BR/FR 2025, D: Kamal Aljafari, 78’, OmeU, DCP In presence of Flavia Mazzarino (Producer and collaborator of Kamal Aljafari) |
DE/GE 2025, D: Alexandre Koberidze, C: David Koberidze, Irina Chelidze, Giorgi Bochorishvili, OmeU, 186’, DCP
In DRY LEAF, Irakli follows the traces of his missing daughter through the most remote villages of Georgia. The journey resembles less a search than a gentle approach towards someone absent.
Alexandre Koberidze continues to explore the possibilities of a radically reduced cinematic language. The images captured by a simple smartphone camera elude documentary clarity: contours dissolve, faces remain shadowy, digital artefacts shape our perception. Where the image withdraws its message, the sound begins to tell the story. Voices, the wind and the compositions by Giorgi Koberidze lend a presence even to the invisible. The essential often begins where the certainty of seeing ends.
| Sat 10 September 2026 | Luru Kino |
| 2 PM | € 7,50 (6,50 reduced) |
POOR IMAGES
A poor image is an underrated image, and a counter-image needs an original image. A relationship. Something that is worth the friction. From the very first minute, GEGENkino has embodied our interest in rebellious, uncomfortable, non-conformist, experimental and sensual attempts to take a stand, to advance film as a language in motion, and to explore new experiences with spaces and light, sounds and music, materials and arrangements.
With this year’s thematic focus POOR IMAGES, we are offering a number of (extremely subjective) perspectives on artworks for which perfection is an abomination. We are turning our senses to these impure and flawed forms of imagery, which are, paradoxically, both marginalised and dominant. Our inspiration and source was Hito Steyerl’s essay “In Defence of the Poor Image”. In it, she pointedly describes, in just a few pages, the political, aesthetic, social, commercial and global conditions of poor images, which are reproduced, edited and exchanged, downloaded, ostracised and consumed permanently. Permanent consumption is all well and good, but when does a cluster of pixels actually become an image, or a mobile phone video a film? Where do the elitist logics of quality, canon and taste drive their nails into the flesh of unbridled, hierarchy-free creativity?
The popularisation of affordable VHS technology in the 1980s and the first, clunky mobile phone cameras were connected with waves of democratisation in filmmaking. New opportunities for participation and global networking suddenly opened up, and the divides between artistic vision, production, technical craftsmanship, marketing, presentation, archiving and curation seemed to have been bridged once and for all. Every now and then, one or another power dynamic was disrupted as well. Until the self-digesting killer capitalism had once again juddered most things out. So, finally, 8K. Pure. Visual. Perfection. Deep pore immaculacy. We’re in a pretty poor state. Let’s make the best of it!
| Thu 10 September 2026 Luru Kino | |
| 9 PM | DRINKING AND DRIVING CA 2026, D: Avalon Fast, Jillian Frank, C: Avalon Fast, Jillian Frank, Ethan Hawksworth, 105’, english OV, DCP |
| Sat 12 September 2026 Luru Kino | |
| 2 PM | DRY LEAF DE/GE 2025, D: Alexandre Koberidze, C: David Koberidze, Irina Chelidze, Giorgi Bochorishvili, OV with english subtitles, 186’, DCP |
| 6 PM | KAMAL ALJAFARI | History without images, images without history WITH HASAN IN GAZA PS/DE/FR/QA 2025, R: Kamal Aljafari, 106’, OV with english subtitles, DCP In the presence of Flavia Mazzarino (Producer and collaborator of Kamal Aljafari) |
| 8 PM | KAMAL ALJAFARI | History without images, images without history A FIDAI FILM PS/DE/QA/BR/FR 2025, R: Kamal Aljafari, 78’, OV with english subtitles, DCP In the presence of Flavia Mazzarino (Producer and collaborator of Kamal Aljafari) |
| Sun 13 September 2026 Luru Kino | |
| 3 PM | FRAUEN IN BERLIN DDR 1981, D: Chetna Vora, 142’, OV with english subtitles, DCP Introduction by Tobias Hering. He is a curator and writer and has carried out long-term research into Chetna Vora. |
| Wed 16 September 2026 UT Connewitz | |
| 9 PM | IF PIGEONS TURNED TO GOLD CZ/SK 2026, D: Pepa Lubojacki, 110’, OV with english subtitles, DCP |
| Thu 17 September 2026 UT Connewitz | |
| 8 PM | Die Kunst des ugandischen Live Dubbing | VJ Emmy begleitet EATEN ALIVE IN UGANDA FORGET THE DIRECTOR, THIS IS EMMY’S CUT! UG/DE 2026, D: Marion Desmaret, 11′, OV with english subtitles, DCP EATEN ALIVE IN UGANDA UG 2026, D: Nabwana I.G.G., C: Alan Hofmanis Ssali, Isaac Newton Kizito, Mwebaza Faridah, 55′, OV with live commentary File |
| Fri 18 September 2026 Luru Kino | |
| 10 PM | PAST FUTURE CONTINUOUS IR/NO/IT 2025, D: Morteza Ahmadvand, Firouzeh Khosrovani, 80’, OV with english subtitles, DCP |
| Sun 20 September 2026 Luru Kino | |
| 7 PM | Ordinary Errors: everything about yourself AND WE ALL SHINE ON US 2006, Michael Robinson, 7’, no dialogue, DCP 2020 AT 2021, Friedl vom Gröller, 2’, no dialogue, DCP POV MEMORY SG/AZ 2023, Igor Smola, 13’, OV with English subtitles, DCP S/T CA 2007, Claudio Caldini, 3’, silent, DCP I CHANGE I AM THE SAME US 1969, Alice Anne Parker, Shelby Kennedy, 1’, no dialogue, DCP I WOULD RATHER BE A STONE HR 2024, Ana Hušman, 24’, OV with English subtitles, DCP EXTRA TERRESTRIAL US 2004, Rhyne Piggott, Ben Russell, 11’, no dialogue, DCP SUPERMAN XK 2002, Sokol Beqiri, 3’, no dialogue, DCP, Lender: Kontakt Collection, Vienna F1GHTING LOOKS DIFFERENT 2 ME NOW Mesa Grande Reservation/US 2022, Fox Maxy, 11’, English OV, DCP |
BR/PT 2025, D: Guto Parente, A: Noá Bonoba, Tavinho Teixeira, Nataly Rocha, 85′, OV with English subtitles, DCP
Madalena is a film producer and eight months pregnant. She wants to make a low-budget science fiction film with her friends, as a tribute to her father, who wrote the screenplay and has just passed away. When Davi, the director and her ex-husband, mysteriously disappears from the film set, Madalena is forced to act: she must do everything she can to finish the film before her baby is born.
Set on the coast of northern Brazil, Parente’s humorous film brings together a charming ensemble cast, oscillating between quirky telenovela with vibrant colours and sentimentality and melodrama with a political stand. DEATH AND LIFE MADALENA is an ode to non-conformist artists and mutual solidarity, to the liberating power of self-deprecating humour and queer friendship.
| Tue 10 September 2026 | Luru Kino |
| 7 PM | German Premiere € 7,50 (6,50 ermäßigt) |
