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Bye Bye Tiberias Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Lina Soualem & Thomas Dodman

VENUE
East Gallery, Maison Française, Buell Hall

Bye Bye Tiberias Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Lina Soualem and Thomas Dodman
Lina Soualem, 2023, 82 min. In French and Palestinian Arabic with English Subtitles
Watch the Trailer

In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass left her native Palestinian village to pursue her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to the village, questioning for the first time her mother’s bold choices, her self-imposed exile, and the profound influence the women in their family have had on both their lives.

Set between past and present, Bye Bye Tiberias weaves together contemporary imagery, family footage from the 1990s, and historical archives to portray four generations of courageous Palestinian women. Through their enduring bonds, they preserve their stories and legacy, despite exile, dispossession, and heartbreak.

This urgent personal documentary of longing, displacement and connection illuminates Palestinian family archives at a time when these documents and stories are being erased in the ongoing genocide. Cinematically weaving generations of matrilineal history with that of her motherland, we honour filmmaker Lina Soualem for her courage and artistry.

Jury Statement, Feature Documentary Award at DOXA Documentary Film Festival 2024

French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actress Lina Soualem was born and is based in Paris. After studying History and Political Science at La Sorbonne University, she worked as a programmer for the International Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires. Soualem’s debut feature documentary, Their Algeria, premiered at the 2020 Visions du Réel International Film Festival and went on to win several prestigious awards, including the First Film Award at CINEMED Montpellier International Festival of Mediterranean Film, the Best Arab Documentary Award at El Gouna Film Festival, and the Best Documentary Award at CINEMANIA Film Festival 2021, among many others. Bye Bye Tiberias premiered at Venice Days in 2023.

In addition to her work behind the camera, Lina Soualem has acted in three feature films directed by Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass, and Rayhana. She is currently developing projects as a writer in fiction, documentaries, and TV series.

Thomas Dodman is Associate Professor of French and Director of the History & Literature Program at Columbia University.

This event is organized by Maison Française and co-sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies. It is presented in the series "In the Middle: Women Documenting Arab Struggles", produced by Columbia Maison Française. For information about other events in the series, please visit the Maison Française website.

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