Bye Bye Tiberias: The Story Of Four Generation Of Palestinian Women Goes For Oscar This year (image@ Lina Soualem)

Palestine Entry for Oscar this year will be a movie called Bye Bye Tiberias, which tells the story of four generations of women in the family of Palestinian actor Hiam Abbas. The movie tells the story of how her family was expelled from their village during the 1948 Nakba. Abbas, who is best known for her roles in HBO’ s award winning Succession and Hulu drama Ramy, said that, “it is very important to remember that we are human beings. We all have the right to live. We all have the right to not be demolished”.

Bye Bye Tiberias, is a documentary film by Lina Soualem, who is daughter of Hiam Abbas. The movie begins with talk of Hiam’s family village in Dier Hanna of Palestine, and its borders with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and memories of them taking bath in Lake Tiberias. The movie also ends in same note, with conversations about borders and a swim in lake, stressing the nostalgia and the sense of loss.

The film speaks about the heartbreaking stories of exile, getting uprooted, displaced, and dispossessed from their homeland, Tiberias during the 1948 Nakba (the catastrophe). It is about the four generations of women of the family who chose their own paths of freedom instead of cowering in front of the limiting political circumstances. The candid chats between Hiam Abbas and other women of the family forms the backbone of the film.

Talking to media, Lina Soualem said the movie is about women “that have been trying to find their place in the world in a context of displacement”. Hiam Abbas said “it is always important to tell stories of people who are deprived of certain rights that others have”. Abbas grew up in Dier Henna, where her mother and grandmother ended up after being expelled form Tiberias in 1948.