Bye Bye Tiberias (Lina Soualem) France, Palestine |

Bye Bye Tiberias
Lina Soualem
France, Palestine. 2023. 82 min

In her early twenties, Hiam Abbas has 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 and questions for the first time her mother’s bold choices , her chosen exile and the way the women in their family influenced both their lives.
Set between past and present , Bye Bye Tiberias pieces together images of today, family footage from the nineties and historical archives to portray four generations of daring Palestinian women who keep their story and legacy alive through the st rength of their bonds, despite exile , dispossession, and heartbreak.

LINA SOUALEM

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 for the International Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires. Lina’s debut feature documentary Their Algeria premiered in Visions du Réel International Film Festival 2020. Their Algeria received more than a dozen awards, such as the First Film award in CINEMED, the Best Arab Documentary award in El Gouna Film Festival, and the Best Documentary Award at Cinemania Film Festival 2021. Lina acted in three feature films directed by Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass and Rayhana. In 2020, she worked as a researcher and writing coordinator on the series OUSSEKINE (Disney+). Her second feature length documentary, Bye Bye Tiberias premiered in 2023 at The 80th Venice International Film Festival, then got selected at TIFF, BFI London Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, IDFA, DOC NYC, RIDM, Palm Springs & more. The film received several awards such as the Best Documentary Award at the BFI and the Jury Prize at the Marrakech International Film Festival. Bye Bye Tiberias was chosen to represent Palestine at the Oscars 2024 and was nominated in the Best Documentary category at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards.

FILMOGRAPHY

Director of Bye Bye Tiberias, Documentary, 82min, Venice Days 2023
Director of Their Algeria, Documentary, 72min, Visions du Réel 2020
Writer and researcher of Oussekine, Fiction series, directed by Antoine Chevrollier (Disney+), 2020
Actress in You Deserve a lover, directed by Hafsia Herzi, Semaine de la critique Cannes 2019
Director of The Algerian flag & Les archives numériques du Cinéma Algérien, Al Jazeera, 2019
Actress in I Still Hide to Smoke, directed by Rayhana, produced by Michèle Ray Gavras (KG Productions), 2015
Programmer for the Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2013

DIRECTOR´S NOTE

We don’t belong to a place; we belong to the story of the place.”
In the film, I embody the fourth generation of women present on screen, and the first to be born outside of Palestine. I carry the memory of the women in my family and the history of exile and dispossession they faced. By telling their story, I reclaim the personal, historical and visual legacies that I have inherited. I question these legacies, confront them and intertwine them together in order to answer a question that haunts me: how does a woman find her place when caught between worlds?
By making this film, I follow the same path as the women in my family. Passing on our story has always been central. With our words, we fight against erasure and oblivion. That is why I feel a constant urge to share these stories. By re-inventing the history of my family, I hope to not only reclaim my heritage, but to seize and preserve the images of a world rapidly disappearing. Images that stand as proof of a denied existence.

PRESS KIT

REVIEWS

Variety, myDylarama, Screen Daily, Culturefly, Reel News Daily, Taxi Drivers, AWFJ, L’Espresso, The Film Verdict, Screen Daily, Cineuropa, Nina Rothe Blog