“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”—Lilia Watson
This screening program explores the histories and practices of solidarity with Palestine through filmmaking and the archive, with particular attention to connections between Japan and Palestine. Across three gatherings, we consider how films carry political commitments across borders—and how the recovery, circulation, and reworking of images can sustain those commitments in the present.
November 7, 14 & 17, 2026.
Film lineup and order remain provisional.
Across Japan and Palestine, cinema becomes a meeting ground for political movements and the solidarities they set in motion. From Adachi and Wakamatsu’s revolutionary filmmaking to the journeys of Palestinian images preserved in Japan, these films trace commitments carried through encounters, circulating reels, and acts of remembrance.
Explore this section ↗Section 02 / 2026
Resonating with Masao Adachi’s insurgent cinematic form, Kamal Aljafari’s recent works reappropriate dispossessed Palestinian images looted by Israeli archives. Found footage is disrupted, cut, repeated, erased, and reanimated through what Aljafari calls “cinematic sabotage.” In Aljafari’s incisive hands, images are liberated from the provenance imposed by the colonial archive. As in Masao’s films, images of landscape are evidence and sites of resistance at once. They are records of occupation, yet it is through rupturing the images and archival authority that colonial overwriting can be undone.
Explore this section ↗Shaffer Art Building, Shemin Auditorium
* Post-screening Discussion
Mohanad Yaqubi | 2022 | Palestine / Belgium / Qatar | 71 min
Shaffer Art Building, Shemin Auditorium
* Post-screening Discussion
Masao Adachi, Koji Wakamatsu | 1971 | Japan | 71 min.
Kamal Aljafari | 2026 | Germany / France / Japan | 27 min.
U.S. Premiere · 64th New York Film Festival
October 4, 2026 ↗
HBC Kittredge Auditorium
* Screening only
Kamal Aljafari | 2022 | Germany / Palestine | 18 min
Kamal Aljafari | 2024 | Germany / Palestine | 15 min
Kamal Aljafari | 2024 | Palestine / Germany / Qatar / Brazil / France | 78 min
Saturday, November 7 · 4–6 p.m.
Tuesday, November 17 · 5–7 p.m.
Saturday, November 14 · 4–6:30 p.m.
Syracuse University.
Shaffer Art Building, Shemin Auditorium · November 7 & 14
HBC Kittredge Auditorium · November 17
Conversation formats and participants will be announced with the final schedule.
Admission, registration, and accessibility details will be added once arrangements are confirmed.
Syracuse University English Department
Syracuse University History Department
East Asia Program, Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs