“Forgetfulness is Fought with Words”: Lina Soualem on Her TIFF-Premiering Doc, Bye Bye Tiberias

"I wonder if we can find ourselves fully in a world we invented,” the French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actor Lina Soualem eloquently ponders in the role of ever-questioning narrator of Bye Bye Tiberias, her extraordinary, multigenerational, female-focused family portrait. Seen through contemporary footage and 90s home movies — expertly interwoven with material from historical archives — the women include not only Soualem’s conservative, customs-observing grandmother and great-grandmother, who never left the Palestinian village their entire community had been forcibly displaced to, but also her mother, Hiam Abbass, a rebellious dreamer set on becoming an international actress. And now, 30 years on and nearly a hundred roles later (most recently as Marcia Roy in Succession), Abbass returns with her camera-wielding daughter, the only Euro-born-and-raised member of the clan. As the globetrotting thespian offers in one especially poignant scene, “I think we know how to become mothers, but never know how to separate from a mother.” No doubt the same can be said of the attachment one feels to the stories that create home. So to learn all about this personal-political (and emotional) cinematic journey, Filmmaker reached out to Soualem, whose prior doc Their Algeria delved into her paternal history — specifically the divorce of her grandparents (mère et père to the French actor Zinedine Soualem) after 60 years of marriage. Bye Bye Tiberias debuts September 11th at the Toronto International Film Festival.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.