Echoes of a Distant Home - 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.

Featuring:

Lost In Time (Dir. Maryam Hassanein)
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.

Liminal (Dir. Reem Maghrib)
Inspired by an oral history collection that includes interviews with Syrians living in different cities in western Asia and western Europe, Liminal is a short animated film that reflects on the impact of conflict and migration on Syrian identity.

Bladi | My Country (Dir. Leila Gamaz)
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.

In Three Layers of Darkness (Dir. Houcem Slouli)
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.

Bye Bye Tiberias (Dir. Lina Soualem)
Set between past and present, Bye Bye Tiberias pieces together images of today, family footage from the nineties and historical archives to portray four generations of daring Palestinian women who keep their story and legacy alive through the strength of their bonds, despite exile, dispossession and heartbreak.

I’m Migrant Film Festival is a month-long programme of screenings and events bringing together established filmmakers from across the SWANA Region alongside emerging filmmakers from the Arab World and platforming the most promising new talent from young directors.