COUNTRIES: France, Palestine, Belgium, Qatar YEAR: 2023 RUN TIME: 82 min
DIRECTOR: Lina Soualem
LANGUAGE(S): French, Arabic
SUBTITLES: English
SCRIPT: Lina Soualem, Nadine Naous, Gladys Joujou
PRODUCTION: Jean-Marie Nizan
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Frida Marzouk
EDITOR: Gladys Joujou
MUSIC: Amine Bouhafa
SCREENINGS
SYNOPSIS
In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass left her Palestinian home village to become an actress in Europe. She left her mother, grandmother and seven sisters behind. Thirty years later, her daughter Lina, a filmmaker, returns to the village with her and for the first time questions her mother’s courageous decisions, her self-imposed exile and how the women in her family have influenced both their lives. But her grandmother and great-grandmother were also shaped by their experiences of expulsion and exile.
Lina Soualem combines images from today, family film footage from the 1990s and historical archives to portray four generations of courageous Palestinian women. Sensitive, attentive and loving, BYE BYE TIBERIAS explores the complex relationship between home, family and new beginnings, showing how history is inscribed in the women’s bodies and memories.
Lina Soualem
Lina Soualem is a French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actress, born and based in Paris. After studying History and Political Science at La Sorbonne University, Lina Soualem worked as a programmer for the International Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires. Soualem’s debut feature documentary THEIR ALGERIA premiered in Visions du Réel International Film Festival 2020, and received the First Film Award in CINEMED Montpellier International Festival of Mediterranean Film, the Best Arab Documentary Award in El Gouna Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at Cinemani a Film Festival 2021, among a dozen other awards. Lina Soualem also acted in three feature films directed by Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass and Rayhana. She currently works as an author on fiction, documentaries and TV series.
Their Algeria (2020), Bye Bye Tiberias (2023)