Bye Bye Tiberias

France | 2023 | 1h22 | Documentary Hiam Abbass left her Palestinian village to pursue her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her daughter Lina, a filmmaker, returns with her in search of the lost places and scattered memories of four generations of Palestinian women. Weaving together images of the present with family and historical archives, the film explores the transmission of memory, place, femininity and resistance in the lives of women who have learned to leave everything behind and start again. A film by Lina Soualem Lina Soualem is a director and actress born in Paris to an Algerian father and a Palestinian mother. After studying history and political science at the Sorbonne University, Lina worked as a programmer for the International Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her first feature-length documentary Leur Algérie had its world premiere at Visions du Réel 2020, and was released in French cinemas in October 2021 (JHR Films). The film has received a dozen awards, including the First Work Award at the CINEMED Festival and the Best Documentary Award at the CINEMANIA Festival. Lina has acted in three feature films by directors Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass and Rayhana. Her second feature-length documentary, Bye Bye Tibériade, had its world premiere in 2023 at the Venice International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival, among others. Bye Bye Tiberias has been nominated to represent Palestine at the 2024 Oscars. Lina contributes as a writer to fiction, documentary and series projects. She also participated in the writing of the series Oussekine, directed by Antoine Chevrollier.