Leaving her village to follow her dream of becoming an actress, Hiam Abbass also left behind her mother, grandmother and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to journey through the vanished places among the scattered memories of four generations of daring Palestinian women.
SCREENINGS & AWARDS
World Premiere: Venice Film Festival – Giornate degli Autori 2023
2023 Toronto Film Festival (North American Premiere)
Upcoming: BFI London Film Festival (October 5-16), Arab Film Festival Tubingen (October 5-14), DOK Leipzig (October 8-15), MIDDLE EAST NOW Festival (October 10-15), Chicago FF (October 11-22), IDFA (November 8-19), RIDM (November 17-27)
PRESS
Reviews: Taxi Drivers, L’Espresso, The Film Verdict, Screen Daily, Cineuropa, Nina Rothe Blog
Interviews: Deadline, Filmmaker Magazine, The National, Cineuropa, Business Doc Europe, Variety, Hollywood Reporter Italy, FRED, Asharq News, GQ Middle East
***
“Soualem’s sophomore effort is an emotional journey”
Christopher Vourlias, Variety
“dazzling in its choice of archive” … “immensely moving”
Nick Cunningham, Business Doc Europe
“an incredibly personal investigation where the intimate interlaces with the upheavals of history” … “the film is an instructive and touching mosaic where past and present overlap, and a keen sense of heritage and transmission shines through“
Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Lina Soualem
French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actress, born and based in Paris. After studying History and Political Science at La Sorbonne University, Lina started working 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 the First Film Award in CINEMED Montpellier International Festival of Mediterranean Film, the Best Arab Documentary Award in El Gouna Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at Cinemania Film Festival, among a dozen other awards. Lina acted in three feature films directed by Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass and Rayhana. Bye Bye Tiberias, her second documentary film, premiered in Venice International Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, and was nominated to represent Palestine at the Oscars 2024. Lina currently works as an author on fiction films, documentaries and TV series. She also was part of the writing room of the series Oussekine (Disney+).
Filmography (selection)
Bye Bye Tiberias, 82min, 2023
Their Algeria, 72min, 2020
CREDITS
Director Lina Soualem
Screenplay Lina Soualem, Nadine Naous in collaboration with Gladys Joujou
Cinematography Frida Marzouk
Editing Gladys Joujou
Original Music Amine Bouhafa
Produced by Jean-Marie Nizan
Co-produced by Guillaume Malandrin, Ossama Bawardi
Production company Beall Productions
Co-production companies Altitude100 Production, Philistine Films
In association with ARTE France
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), PROCIREP & ANGOA, Doha Film Institute, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), International Media Support (IMS), Cinema and Audiovisual Center of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, The Belgian Tax Shelter and Inver Invest
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Jean-Marie Nizan
Jean-Marie Nizan is a director and producer of documentaries and audiovisual programs. After studying architecture, he turns toward moving images. He directed documentaries, TV shows, music recordings and short programs. He is the author and director of several documentaries on cinema and culture, from Femme et cinéaste (1996) to Cinéma by Michel Hazanavicius (2018). He directed films about cinema in Iran, China, Thaïland, Argentina, Australia and more. Since 2016, within Beall productions, he has produced films of all formats for cinema and television (Arte, Canal+, France Television, OCS as well as Ciné+). He also produces films for public institutions such as the Rmn – Grand Palais or the Paris Opera. Built around an association of directors & producers, Beall Production is a company that is used to all shooting and editing configurations. Through their personal experiences in production, direction, or conception of TV programs, videos for the Web, for social networks, trailers, short and long documentaries, they adapt to any situation. Stories are always at the center of their reflection.
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Beall Productions is a production company funded in 2012 by a collective of directors and producers. The company provides delegated or executive production for numerous documentaries, short programs and magazines, both for television for cultural organizations and for theater/cinema. Since its creation, the company has built solid foundations with the core business of its founders: a production company turned towards culture and in particular cinema and its links with society. Today, it continues to develop with a double desire to open up to projects more directly linked to history, society and global issues, and to new authors and directors. Beall’s production team is used to all shooting and editing configurations: reporting, live recording, direct, graphic design, archives. Stories are always at the center of their reflection. A story is told, is passed down, travels. It writes itself in our minds and in time. A story is made of words, but also images. That’s how Beall loves to tell them, by associating the two.
Beall Productions
43 rue de Saintonge
75003 Paris
info@beall.fr
+33 1 43 48 76 11
https://www.beall.fr
CO-PRODUCTION COMPANY
Altitude100 Production
Belgium
Rue du Fort 109, 1060 Bruxelles
+32 2 533 18 90
info@altitude100.eu
https://www.altitude100.eu
Philistine Films
Palestine
info@philistinefilms.com
http://www.philistinefilms.com
