Bye Bye Tiberias

Soualem can’t quite reconcile the personal and the political in this heartfelt (and moving) portrait of Abbass’ sifting through her family history; the attempts to interweave and contextualise the political history of Palestine is of potential interest, but the scant running time means the reach exceeds its grasp. Tempted to rate higher simply because the material about the family is so well told and likable, but ultimately each of the warring halves of the film tend to dilute the other.

archivals work good, also women connection but not sure about the structure of the film and the palestinian story in it. definitely worth seeing and says emotially important things, but it has the feeling of a film that gets a bit off track in trying to include many things.

Palestinian women and forced separations. Standard, but heartfelt. Mostly a story about ways to reconnect with faces and places. Memories that only exist if you talk about them. Or through images you create. So painful to watch Abbass struggling to cope with her mom's death, even decades after she went west. Or when she visited her aunt in Syria, who didn't see her sister for 30 years, and she kept smelling her because the scents reminded her of each member of their family. Zionism is a cancer.