A family consisting of four generations of Palestinian women is the subject of this highly personal documentary that sheds an affirmative light on stories of displacement—from their lands and themselves.
Review #2,736
Dir. Lina Soualem
2023 | Palestine | Documentary | 82 min | 1.85:1 | Arabic & French
NC16 (passed clean) for some mature content
Cast: –
Plot: In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass 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.
Awards: Official Selection (Venice & Toronto)
International Sales: Lightdox
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Palestinian Women; Family; Displacement
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: Screener (as part of Singapore Film Society Showcase)
Spoilers: No
One has to watch Bye Bye Tiberias in the context of not just what is happening between Israel and Palestine currently, but over decades of armed conflict that has plagued the region.
It is a very personal documentary as filmmaker Lina Soualem interviews her loved ones with the intention of showing what it means to be a Palestinian woman across time (over four generations) and space, the latter of which has invariably marked the experiences of the displaced Palestinians from their beloved lands.
Lake Tiberias (also known as the Sea of Galilee) has been a source of comfort for generations in Soualem’s family, but now it is no more than an imagined space.
One can still visit it in Israel, of course, and considering that Soualem and her mother have French passports, it isn’t an insurmountable journey, but the film’s title recognises with sheer melancholy the fading existence of a place they once understood as an embodiment of peace and family.
“These images of childhood conceal the reality of a place that may disappear any day now.”
Alternating between home videos shot in the early 1990s at the location, interviews that are conversations about memory, and also some real-life footage of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that caused more than 700,000 Palestinians to be dispossessed, Bye Bye Tiberias isn’t an especially interesting documentary in terms of form, but what it has in abundance is the warmth of personal touch. It is affirmative and encouraging in its desire to tell one story of separation.
Soualem’s mother, Hiam Abbass, is the wistful main subject, leaving her family behind in Palestine for France many decades ago to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress. Abbass would go on to star in films like Spielberg’s Munich (2005) and the hit series, Succession (2018-2023).
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 