"This is the first film I have never made” is how director Kamal Aljafari, rightfully so, describes this movie that only formed more than twenty years after the images were made. 

He traveled across Gaza with nothing more than a name, a photo, and a camcorder, searching for Abdel Rahim, the man with whom he had been imprisoned for seven months during the First Intifada and whose fate remains unknown. Together with local guide Hasan he travelled from north to south, passing beaches, markets, checkpoints, while the threat of violence was always lingering in the background. The rediscovered MiniDV-tapes don't show major events, but the rhythms of everyday life in Gaza: playing kids, bustling cafes, nightly shootings in the distance. With Hasan in Gaza becomes a visual diary that acts as a cinematic time capsule—an archive of a Gaza that no longer exists as it once was.

Aljafari’s work was shown at festivals like Locarno and Viennale and was awarded at FIDMarseille and Visions du Réel, among others. With Hasan in Gaza premiered in Locarno, where the film received the Europa Cinemas Label.