Bye Bye Tiberias

Around thirty years ago, Hiam Abbass left her native Palestinian village, Deir Hanna, in Galilee, where she grew up with her grand-mother Um Ali, her mother Neemat and her seven sisters, in order to pursue her dream to become an actress in Paris. The place where her daughter Lina was born, thirty-two years ago. With her camera in hand, Lina questions her mother’s bold choices, her chosen exile and the way the women in her family, whom she has left behind, have influenced her life. The film puts the spotlight on four generations of daring Palestinian women who carry their intimate and collective memory through the power of their relationships with each other, despite dispossession and displacement. It pieces together images of today, family archives and historical footage while exploring the transmission of memory, places, know-how, femininity and resistance.