Lina Soualem / France, Palestine, Belgium, Qatar / 82′ / 2023

In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass left her native Palestinian village of Deir Hanna in Galilee to follow her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and seven sisters. She settled in Paris where she had her daughter Lina. Every summer when Lina was a child, Hiam took her to the village to visit the family.
Thirty years later, Lina stumbles upon videotapes from the nineties retracing their Palestinian summer holiday. She watches the videos and recognizes the familiar faces of the women who marked her childhood: her younger mother, her grandmother Nemat, her great-grandmother Um Ali, her seven aunts. They seem to be the guardians of a temple in which all collective and intimate memories are preserved. Lina realizes her mother never spoke about why she left. She decides to return to the village and to question her mother’s bold choices, her chosen exile, and the way the women of their family have impacted both their lives. She revisits lost places, reactivates buried memories, collects untold stories and highlights four generations of daring Palestinian women who keep their story alive through the strength of their bonds, despite exile, dispossession, and heartbreak.
Bye Bye Tiberias pieces together images of the present, family footage from the nineties and historical archives to explore how memory, space, femininity, and resistance are passed down from one generation to the next. A journey into the lives of women who had to leave everything and start anew – over, and over again.

Directed by Lina Soualem
Write by Lina Soualem e Nadine Naous with the collaboration of Gladys Joujou
Editing by Gladys Joujou
Original score by Amine Bouhafa © Nileam Scoring Factory
Cinematography by Frida Marzouk
Sound recordist Ludovic Escallier, Lina Soualem
Sound editor Gervaise Demeure
Mix Julie Tribout e Benoît Biral
Colourist Christophe Bousquet
With Hiam Abbass, Um Ali Tabari, Nemat Tabari Abbas, Said Abbas, Omaya Younes, Johayna Hussein Abbas, Buthayna Abbas Hajo, Diana Hussein, Wafa Malgo, Zahera Bounechada, Hanan Abbas Diab, Naief Abbas, Jallal Abbas
With the partecipation of Amer Khalil
Production Beall Productions
Coproduction Altitude100 Production e Philistine Films
In association with Arte France – La Lucarne
With the support of Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, Centre du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Tax shelter du gouvernement fédéral de Belgique, Inver Tax Shelter, Doha Film Institute, The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture
Produced by Jean-Marie Nizan
Managing producer Marie de Labarre
Coproduced by Guillaume Malandrin
In memory of Nemat, Um Ali and Hosnieh

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. She currently works as an author on fiction films, documentaries and TV series. She recently worked as a researcher and writing coordinator on the series Oussekine (Disney+).