Ongoing Farewell

In Bye Bye Tiberias (2023), director Lina Soualem follows her mother, actor Hiam Abbass, back to Lake Tiberias in northern Palestine to revisit the physical ruptures that have defined the family’s history and that of countless families who survived the Nakba. The narration, shared between Abbass and Soualem, accompanies an expansive journey: to the land where Abbass’s parents’ home stood in Tiberias, before it was destroyed when the Israeli army flattened the city in 1948; to the shores of the titular lake; to the house in Deir Hanna where Abbass’s mother and sisters grew up after being displaced; and finally, to Abbass’s current home in France. The documentary moves between family archival materials, including videotapes from the 1990s, when Soualem was a child, and more recent footage—ruptures in time reflecting ruptures in space. Bye Bye Tiberias embodies what Rosemary Sayigh calls “the many versions” of Nakba: based on the countless experiences, recollections, and testimonies that record a catastrophic displacement and loss of homeland.