Kamal Aljafari

Aljafari was born to a Palestinian family in Ramla.^[3] His maternal family is from Jaffa, while his paternal family is from Ramla; both families were internally displaced and resettled to homes that had previously belonged to other Palestinians.^[4]

He attended a Catholic school in Jaffa as a child.^[5] As a teenager, he served time at a juvenile prison in the Naqab desert during the First Intifada.^[6][7] He later attended university in Jerusalem before leaving Palestine for Germany at the age of 26.^[4] He graduated from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.^[3] He was based in New York City and Berlin before moving to Paris.^{[5][8][9][10]}

Aljafari directed his first short film, Visit Iraq (2003), while a film student in Germany.^[4] In 2009, he was a featured artist at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, and was later a Benjamin White Whitney Scholar at Harvard University from 2009 to 2010.^[8] His film A Fidai Film (2024) premiered in the Burning Lights competition of Visions du Réel, where it won the Jury Award.^[11] His film With Hasan in Gaza (2025) premiered in the international competition of the 78th Locarno Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Golden Leopard.^[12][13]

He has served on the juries of:

• Torino Film Festival, International Documentary competition (2016)^[14]
• Locarno Film Festival, Leopards of Tomorrow competition (2021)
• IndieLisboa (2024)^[15]