Bye bye Tiberiads wins the Doxa Prize for best documentary feature in Vancouver
The Vancouver Documentary Film Festival was the scene of the consecration of Bye bye Tiberiade from Lina Soualem. The jury, composed of Hejer Charf, Liz Marshall and Sara Wylie, chose this film as a laureate of the prestigious Doxa Prize for the documentary feature film.
In this poignant story, Hiam Abbass, renowned actress, evokes her departure from her Palestinian village to continue her cinema dreams in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother and seven sisters. Bye bye Tiberiade Takes us thirty years later, while her daughter Lina, also director, joined her in a trip in the footsteps of buried memories and disappeared places of four generations of Palestinian women. Through a subtle intertwining of current images and family and historical archives, the film explores the transmission of memory, places, femininity and resistance, offering a poignant testimony on the life of women who have learned to abandon everything to start everything again.
The jury was unanimous in its decision to award the DOXA price to Bye bye Tiberiades. In their declaration, the jurors praised this documentary as an urgent work, dealing with themes such as desire, displacement and connection, while enlightening the Palestinian family archives in a context marked by their continuous erasure. They also paid tribute to the courage and art of Lina Soualem for having carried this story with such sensitivity.“This personal and urgent documentary on desire, displacement and connection illuminates the Palestinian family archives at a time when these documents and stories are erased in the current genocide. By weaving cinematographically the generations of matrilineal history with that of her maternal homeland, we honor the filmmaker Lina Soualem for her courage and her art ”.
In addition to the main price, two special mentions were awarded. The first mention returns to The Stimming Pool From the Neurocultures collective and Steven Eastwood, a unique example of participative and formally innovative cinema. The second mention is attributed to Kamay From Ilyas Yourish and Shahrokh Bikaran, a poignant and poetic film that explores the themes of love, loss and perseverance, while paying homage to the Hazara people and the women of Afghanistan.
Bye bye Tiberiade has already received many honors, including the Best Documentary Prize in several renowned festivals such as the Cleveland International Film Festival, the London Film Festival, the Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival, as well as the Jury Prize at the Marrakech International Film Festival. This new prize thus enriches the list of deserved distinctions of this captivating film, testifying to its impact and its relevance in the contemporary cinematographic landscape.
Bye bye Tiberiade is currently in theaters in Tunisia. A film to see!
Neïla Driss
