Shot on 16mm with open sets and non-actors, Żafżifa unfolds as an emotional journey of yearning, scepticism, and hope. The stories, shaped not by invention but by lived encounters, build continuously, culminating in an architectural and emotional collapse.
Set in a small and densely populated seaside town in Buġibba, Malta, Żafżifa paints a corrosive portrait of a man who returns to the island to discover his friends have taken advantage of the changing economy and moved on with their lives. Tortured by a mysterious past, he seeks to unleash himself from the relentless progress that surrounds him.
Throughout, friends and enemies swim by, failing to puncture his carapace until he meets Annie. She, like him, has a child she never sees; has been disappointed in love; lives in a vacuum, without freedom, without companionship. Brought together by fate and torn apart by circumstance, together they struggle against a barrage of obstacles the gods throw in their path.
