Khaled Jarrar’s Infiltrators
Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 7 pm at Burning Books (420 Connecticut St, Buffalo, NY 14213)
Free or $10 suggested donation. Limited seating, first-come, first-serve
Khaled Jarrar’s stunning Infiltrators (70 minutes, Palestine / United Arab Emirates, 2012) is a visceral road movie that chronicles the daily travails of Palestinians of all backgrounds as they seek routes through, under, around, and over a bewildering matrix of barriers and border walls in the highly militarized West Bank. Alternating between cigarette breaks, detours, waiting, and moving, Infiltrators depicts the cunning, unnerving, and constant struggle to defy captivity and occupation.
For attendees: The screening will take place at Burning Books located at 420 Connecticut Street, Buffalo, NY 14213. Street parking is available. For transportation by bus, it is near stops for the 3, 19, 22, and 101 bus lines. Seating is first-come, first-serve.
This screening is presented as part of the series, Infiltrators: Two films by Alex Rivera, two films by Khaled Jarrar. Support for this program is provided by Teiger Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Film courtesy of Third World Newsreel.
About the filmmaker
Khaled Jarrar was born in Jenin, Occupied Palestine in 1976. He lives and works in Ramallah. Jarrar completed his studies in interior design at Palestine Polytechnic University in 1996. Upon graduating he smuggled himself to work as a carpenter in Nazareth, living as an underground “illegal” worker. In 1998 Jarrar enlisted in an intensive military training which resulted in working for Arafat as a personal body guard until Arafat’s death in 2004. Attempting to create a life between the military and an artistic practice, Jarrar entered the field of photography in 2005. Jarrar graduated from the International Academy of Art – Palestine, Ramallah in 2011 and completed an MFA in fine art from the University of Arizona in 2019.
Jarrar, a multidisciplinary artist, explores modern power struggles and their sociocultural impact on ordinary citizens through highly symbolic photographs, videos, film, and performative interventions. His State of Palestine project was featured in the 7th Berlin Biennale. Where We Lost Our Shadows, his filmic collaboration with Pulitzer prize winning composer Du Yun, was shown at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Jarrar’s work has been featured at Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah; the New Museum, New York City; the University of Applied Arts, Vienna; the 15th Jakarta Biennale; 52nd October Salon, Belgrade; Al-Ma’mal Foundation, Jerusalem; and the London Film Festival. Infiltrators, Jarrar’s first feature length film, was a documentary about the business of Palestinian’s “illegally” crossing and won the FIPRESCI Award for Best Documentary, Jury Special Award and the Muhr Arab Documentary Special Jury Prize at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2012. Notes on Displacement, his second feature length, about a Palestinian refugee’s flight from Syria to Germany, received a world premiere at the IDFA Envision Competition in November 2022.
Banner image: A still from Khaled Jarrar’s film, Infiltrators. The frames of several people can be discerned against a city backdrop at night time. Clouds are lit in orange from the city lights.
