Aydelotte Foundation at Swarthmore College JustArt Spring 2025 Series Presents:
Bye Bye Tiberias
Q&A with filmmaker Lina Soualem
BYE BYE TIBERIAS (dir. Lina Soualem), a Women Make Movies release, is a story of vanished places, life changing experiences, and scattered memories. This documentary, nominated for the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Award, tells the story of Hiam Abbass’s return to her roots. Fabien Lemercier of Cineuropa praises it as “an incredibly personal investigation where the intimate interlaces with the upheavals of history.” This documentary is a poignant blend of past and present, revealing the resilience of Palestinian women.
Palestine’s entry for Best International Feature in the 2024 Academy Awards, this second feature from Lina Soualem premiered at Venice, won the Grierson Award at the BFI London Film Festival, had its North American Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and won the shared jury prize at the Marrakech International Film Festival. An important film that beautifully portrays the complexity of Arab women’s lives.
Lina Soualem, a French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actress, was born and is based in Paris. After completing her studies in History and Political Science at La Sorbonne University, she worked as a programmer for the International Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires. Soualem’s debut feature documentary, “Their Algeria,” premiered at the Visions du Réel International Film Festival in 2020. It won the First Film Award at the CINEMED Montpellier International Festival of Mediterranean Film, the Best Arab Documentary Award at the El Gouna Film Festival, and the Best Documentary Award at the Cinemania Film Festival in 2021, along with a dozen other accolades. Lina Soualem has also acted in three feature films, directed by Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass, and Rayhana. She is currently engaged in writing for fiction, documentaries, and TV series. (12/23)
This event is co-sponsored by the Aydelotte Foundation, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Film & Media Studies and the Cooper Serendipity Fund.
