Khaled Jarrar’s Notes on Displacement
Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 7 pm at Burning Books (420 Connecticut St, Buffalo, NY 14213)
Free or $10 suggested donation. Limited seating, first-come, first-serve
The news is full of disturbing images of overcrowded boats and vast tent camps. But how much do we really know about what refugees are going through? Khaled Jarrar’s Notes on Displacement (74 minutes, Palestine / Germany / Qatar, 2022) takes a deep dive by following a single family on a grueling journey: destination Germany. Their fear, disorientation, and solidarity is palpable.
Nadira, an elderly Palestinian, has been a refugee since the age of 12. Now she has to evacuate Damascus, too. She and her daughter Mona feared for their lives there, but the idea of a safe existence elsewhere is a distant dream. Filmmaker Khaled Jarrar receives unsettling videos and voice messages as they cross to the Greek island of Lesbos. He joins them there, on the long road to a new life.
Jarrar has personal reasons for going through this experience in order to eliminate, through his own images, the distance so dominant in Western media coverage. He worms his way through the thronging crowds, gets lost in the night with his group, discovers how dangerous language barriers can be, and wanders around in the dehumanizing camps. And in a sense he—along with the viewer— becomes a true member of this family.
My grandmother Shafiqa was forced to leave her home in Haifa, her Jasmine tree, her cup of tea on her balcony and her view of the sea. I inherited this pain print of hers through haunted memories both beautiful and painful at the same time. They chased me in my dreams like ghosts that never intended to leave. I tried to escape through geography, through emotion, through psychology, but leaving the past behind proved impossible, something always forced me back in time. Nadira’s plea brought me to the front lines; creating new memories by walking this new exodus together. We were real time inside the frame capturing the present to battle the past – creating a communication between the two. As the director from behind the camera I was driven to offer images of our own making, outside the never-ending western paparazzi image onslaught of displaced refugees. This film is for us, our values, our knowledge, our experiences. – Khaled Jarrar, November 2022
For attendees: The screening will take place at Burning Books located at 420 Conneticut 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 Cinema Politica.
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, Notes on Displacement. A man and two women are walking along train tracks on a cloudy day. The man is carrying an umbrella. One of the women has multiple bags hanging from her shoulder.
