Filmmaker Lina Soualem searches for the stories of her Palestine family. Apart from being a loving documentary, “Bye Bye Tiberias” (p.49) is also a touching film about the history of the Jewish-Palestine conflict. Personal videos from her family archive and black-and-white images make for a broader approach of the story.
During her research to historic images, Soualem discovered how in colonial films, such as “Villégiatures – Palestine – Bethléem”, Palestinians are often reduced to anonymous pawns: Muslim men, Christian women, Bedouins with no name, face or voice. These images, made from a dehumanising colonial perspective, are the only tangible proof of the existence of their diverse community on their own land. Soualem points at the colonial past of such archives, which are still in control of (ex-)colonial authorities to this day. Palestinians often have to buy to use images of themselves, limiting their right for representation and complex stories.
Soualem urges to reuse these archives in order to negate colonial depictions, and restore the collective memory and identity of the Palestinians. Her plea is an important contribution to the topic of remembering African and Arabic film heritage.
Preceding “Bye Bye Tiberias”, the silent film “Villégiatures – Palestine – Bethléem” from 1929 will be shown. Accompanied with live musicians.
A review will follow after the film is finished.
