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Past, Present and Possibilities
Two Award Winning Films About Exile & Displacement
Speakers
4:00 pm – 5:20 pm : Lyd
5:20 pm – 6:00 pm : Discussion
6:15 pm – 6:30 pm : Break
6:30 pm- 8:00 pm : Bye Bye Tiberias
8:00 pm- 9:00 pm : Discussion
LYD
Speculative Documentary | Arabic, Hebrew with English subtitles | Palestine, United Kingdom, USA| Sarah Ema Friedland and Rami Younis |2023
Lyd follows the rise and fall of Lyd, a 5,000-year-old metropolis that was once a bustling Palestinian town until it was conquered when the State of Israel was established in 1948. As the film unfolds, a chorus of characters creates a tapestry of the Palestinian experience of this city and the trauma left by the massacre and expulsion, while vivid animations envision an alternate reality where the same characters live free from the trauma of the past and the violence of the present. Using never-before-seen archival footage of the Israeli soldiers who carried out the massacre and expulsion, the personified city explains that these events were so devastating that they fractured reality, and now there are two Lyds – one occupied and one free. As the film cuts between fantastical and documentary realities, it ultimately leaves the viewer questioning which future should prevail. Lyd dares to ask the question: what would the city be like had the Israeli occupation of Lyd never happened?
Link to the trailer
Bye Bye Tiberias
Documentary Feature | French, Palestinian Arabic with English subtitles | France, Palestine, Belgium, Qatar | Lina Soualem | 2023
In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass (Emmy-nominated for Succession) left her native Palestinian village to follow 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 and questions for the first time her mother’s bold choices, her chosen exile and the way the women in their family influenced both their lives. Set between past and present, BYE BYE TIBERIAS pieces together images of today, family footage from the nineties and historical archives to portray four generations of daring Palestinian women who keep their story and legacy alive through the strength of their bonds, despite exile, dispossession, and heartbreak. Palestine’s entry for Best International Feature in the 2024 Academy Awards, this second feature from Lina Soualem premiered at Venice, won the Grierson Award at the BFI London Film Festival, had its North American Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and won the shared jury prize at the Marrakech International Film Festival. An important film that beautifully portrays the complexity of Arab women’s lives.
Link to the trailer
In collaboration with
Speakers
Marcy Newman
Marcy Newman is a writer and educator who spent the better part of a decade as a literature professor working in West Asia from An Najah University in Nablus, Palestine to the American University of Beirut in Lebanon before moving to Bangalore.
She is the author of The Politics of Teaching Palestine to Americans: Addressing Pedagogical Strategies and writes for publications such as Mondoweiss and The Wire. An American Jew, she has worked extensively with organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the International Jewish Antizionist Network, and was a founding member of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
Swati Dandekar
Swati Dandekar is a documentary filmmaker and a film educator based in Bangalore, India, with a special interest in creating critical visual narratives of the living history around her, of people, places, ideas, traditions, practices, and the continuous process of change. In addition, she has been closely involved with designing media for education. As a founder trustee of Vikalp Bengaluru, she has been actively screening documentary films and curating festivals in Bangalore city for over fifteen years. Swati heads the Film programme at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore.
