17 min. German.
An old woman leans to the young man with the yellow book sitting next to her and asks, “What are they distributing here?” “Numbers”, he replies. In Berlin’s waiting rooms, where metal and wooden seats are nailed to the ground, people arrive after emerging from the seas. Here they wait.
Kamal Aljafari’s new short film once again collapses time, questioning the meaning of life in a system in which humanity is reduced to a number and the value of one’s future is measured by applications within grey hallways. Step into this black hole, where bones and flesh have become numbers in a queuing system. With surreal humor, this film observes the origins of our being versus the future of how we are defined. What have we become from our point of origin until today’s chaos of bureaucratic mazes? It’s a long way from Amphioxus, we all came from there.
Kamal Aljafari, born in Palestine in 1972, lives in Berlin. He works with moving and still images, interweaving between fiction, non-fiction, and art. Kamal’s past films include Recollection (2015), Port of Memory (2009), and The Roof (2006). He was a featured artist at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar (NYC) and was a Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute and Film Study Center.
Production Kamal Aljafari, Sheyma Buali. Production company Kamal Aljafari Studio (Berlin, Germany). Written and directed by Kamal Aljafari. Cinematography Christopher Turiello. Sound design Gilles Benardeau. Sound Antoine Brochu. Production manager Blandine Casen. With Faysal Bibi.
Films
2003: Visit Iraq. 2006: The Roof (58 min.). 2007: Balconies (11 min.). 2009: Port of Memory (58 min.). 2015: Recollection (70 min.). 2019: It’s a Long Way from Amphioxus.
Photo: © Kamal Aljafari
