About the Event
Bye Bye Tiberias
Directed by Lina Soualem
(Palestine, 2023, 82 min.)
Preceded by The Key, a short film.
Friday, May 17 // 7:00 PM
Welcoming remarks at 6:30 PM
The 17th annual Palestine Film Festival will commence with opening remarks at 6:30 p.m. by festival president Ahmed Ghoneim as well as the artist director Ola Al Sheikh, which will be followed by a performance by the Al-Zaytouna Band.
This year’s Palestine Festival kicks off with a documentary by Lina Soualem, Bye Bye Tiberias. Years after leaving her Palestinian village to pursue an acting career in France, Hiam Abbass returns home with her daughter, in this intimate documentary about four generations of women and their shared legacy of separation. “It just so happens that Bye Bye Tiberias, with its images of Palestinians in all manner of traditional and Western dress shopping at a bazaar in 1940 and then, barely a decade later, digging through homes reduced to rubble and carrying all their belongings to places they don’t yet know, is particularly felicitous right now. But it would be a mistake to think that the other story this documentary is telling — about feeling suffocated by borders, history, and tradition, and yearning for kinship, opportunity, and freedom from other people’s judgments — is somehow separate from that. They exist together, like the present, past, and future; time and opportunities for connection and understanding, Bye Bye Tiberias warns us, are slipping away” — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture
Tickets can be purchased at: hpff.org/2024-tickets
To view the complete list of films visit: cinema.rice.edu/HPPF2024
Discounted parking is available at Founder’s Court, a $6 flat rate, and a credit card is required.
Open to the public.
