Open-air cinema: Lina Soualem (guest of Martha Kirszenbaum)

Bye Bye Tibériade is Lina Soualem's second feature-length documentary. It tells the story of her mother, Hiam Abbass, who 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.

Bye Bye Tiberias was selected in 2023 as a world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival, also nominated to represent Palestine at the 2024 Oscars.

Lina Soualem

Lina Soualem is a French-Algerian-Palestinian director and actress born and based in Paris. Her first feature-length documentary Leur Algérie had its world premiere at Visions du Réel 2020 and won the Student Jury Award at Cinemed, the Best Arab Documentary Award at the El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt and the France TV "Des Images et des Elles" Award at the Créteil Women's Film Festival. As an actress, Lina has appeared in four feature films by directors Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass, Rayhana and Rima Samman.