ECHOES OF A DISTANT HOME
Five Stories of Longing and Identity

In this screening programme, we bring together filmmakers who explore the feeling of identity in the transience created by migration and exile that leaves us balancing the home we lost and the home we created.

Screening followed by a panel discussion

Films in this programme:

Bye Bye Tiberias
Dir. Lina Soualem, 82 mins

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.

In Three Layers of Darkness
Dir. Houcem Slouli, 15 mins

The film follows Ghassen, a young Tunisian man, in his quest to obtain a visa, addressing the themes of immigration and perseverance against bureaucratic injustice for a fundamental right: freely moving in this world.

Bladi | My Country
Dir. Leila Gamaz, 5 mins

Drawing on family lived experience of destitution and sleeping on the underground in 80s Paris, Bladi - My Country uses the train as a vehicle to explore how displacement feels as an embodied experience across generations. Personal and public archives are pieced together, blurring linear timeframes that speak to the haziness of memory and ongoing colonial subjugation of people we see around the world today.

Liminal
Creative producer: Reem Maghribi, 4 mins

Liminal is a short film that presents in bite size what we have spent years researching: the impact of conflict and migration on identity and belonging. It is driven by quotes taken from some of the over 300 lengthy interviews we conducted with Syrians forced to flee.

sharq.org has documented over 500 stories told by Syrians and others from the Arabic speaking region. we’ve produced reports and books and podcasts that reflect and examine these stories, but film as a story sharing medium is very effective at provoking interest, empathy and curiosity.

we audio record interviews. not everyone wants to be caught on camera. sometimes because they’re shy. more often because of security concerns. so animation helps us bring their words and voices to life and to audiences. it enables us to honour the courageousness of the experience they share and their willing to do so whilst also avoiding causing them harm.

Lost in Time
Dir. Maryam Hassanein, 21 mins

A docu-fiction follows 2 young Egyptian women’s journeys exploring past memories from the 60s-80s through archival home videos, audio recordings, and recreation of movie scenes.