Refracted Filmmaking in Muhammad Malas’s The Dream and Kamal Aljafari’s The Roof

<jats:p>This article analyzes two films, <jats:italic>The Dream</jats:italic> (Muhammad Malas, 1987) and <jats:italic>The Roof</jats:italic> (Kamal Aljafari, 2006) to define a particular mode of filmmaking. By avoiding direct representations of violence and employing what I call refraction, filmmakers create experiences for viewers that make agential understandings of particular Palestinian times, places and experiences possible. Through refraction, filmmakers refrain from providing new information or explanations, but rather create for spectators a new experience that leads to an affective understanding of a circumstance or event. Refraction can encompass different forms of counter-hegemonic practices. It can deconstruct or queer dominant discursive practices. Through refraction filmmakers can circumvent the discourse of claims-making that viewers have widely come to expect in the Palestinian context, instead creating a point of encounter through which characters and viewers can meet on the basis of equality.</jats:p>