Chicago Palestine Film Festival - Opening Night: Bye Bye Tiberias

BYE BYE TIBERIAS

2023, dir. Lina Soualem
Palestine, France, Belgium, Qatar; 82 min.
In Arabic and French with English subtitles

Thirty years ago, Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass (known for Succession as well as films like Lemon Tree and Paradise Now) left her village in Galilee to follow her dreams of acting in France. In this poignant portrait, both deeply personal and inescapably political, filmmaker Lina Soualem — who is also Abbas’ daughter — traces the story of her mother, her mother’s mother, and their extended family, all of whose lives have been defined by separation, exile, and displacement. Interwoven with nostalgic home video recordings and archival footage of Palestinian life through the decades, BYE BYE TIBERIAS is a memoir about the burden of leaving, the endurance of memory, and the determination to forge one’s own destinies and identities. Selected as the Palestinian entry for the Best International Feature for the 96th Academy Awards.

Preceded by the short films:

JAMILA

2023, dir. Julia Freij, 15 min.

In this coming of age drama set in the mid-2000s, Nour, a Palestinian American teenage girl, must rediscover her multicultural identity after years of repressing her background and growing up among western standards of beauty.

AN ORANGE FROM JAFFA

2023, dir. Mohammed Alughanni, 27 min.

Mohammed, a young Palestinian, is desperately looking for a taxi to take him through an Israeli checkpoint. The driver, Farouk, discovers that Mohammed has already failed to cross the checkpoint. Trouble begins.