Films in production or post-production
BYE BYE TIBERIAS
Synopsis
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.
Frida Marzouk
ADDITIONAL IMAGES: Lina Soualem, Thomas Brémond
Gladys Joujou
Beall Productions (France)
Jean-Marie Nizan
jean-marie@beall.fr
Altitude 100 (Belgium)
Guillaume Malandrin
guillaume@altitude100.eu
Philistine Films (Palestine, Jordan)
Ossama Bawardi
ossama@philistinefilms.com
Director’s statement
My presence in the film is that of the fourth-generation of women, the first to be born outside of Palestine. I naturally carry in me the memory of the women of my family and the History that has been forced upon them. Through Hiam, Um Ali, Neemat and my aunts, I wish to seize the personal, historical and visual legacies that have been offered to me to question them, confront them, knit the bonds between them in order to answer a question that has been tormenting me: How does a woman find her place in the world? The stories unfolding here are not simply a matter of transmission from woman to woman or from mother to daughter. The stories passed on by these women weave the history of a people deprived of its identity. A people bound to constantly re-invent itself. This is a story about vanished places, life-changing experiences and dispersed memories.
Biographies
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 worked as a programmer in film festivals. Lina’s debut feature documentary Their Algeria (Visions du Réel 2020) received several awards at international film festivals. Lina acted in three feature films directed by Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass and Rayhana. She is currently developing her second feature documentary Bye Bye Tiberias, and works as an author on fictions, documentaries and TV series.
Jean-Marie Nizan, after studying architecture, turned to moving images. He directed TV shows, music recordings, short programs and has supervised the production of DVDs for Studio Canal. He is the author and director of documentaries on cinema and culture. Since 2016, within Beall productions, he produces films of all formats for cinema and television, Arte, Canal+, France Television, OCS as well as Ciné+. He also produces films for public institutions such as the Rmn-Grand Palais or the Paris Opera.
€369 108
€248 947
Arte France, CNC, IMS, Doha Film Institute, AFAC, Procirep-Angoa
2019 - 2022, Deir Hanna (Galilee), Paris (France)
May 2023
Video editing in progress
Private and regional funds, distributors, sales agents, broadcasters, festivals
