Synopsis:

A diasporic Palestinian filmmaker returns to her family's hometown ofJenin, which sits at the northernmost part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to make a documentary. Arriving for the first time in May 2016, a half-century after the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, there were no soldiers in sight. But Jenin she found was irreconcilable with the image ingrained in her mind with her family’s oral history. Her family once owned large tracts of land in Marj Ibn Amer, the biblical Jezreel Valley, which now sits almost entirely on the Israeli side of the Wall, which surrounds Jenin on three sides. The once famous Jenini watermelons, which her family exported by the truckload to Syria and Lebanon, no longer grow in Jenin. She returns to her new home in Canada without a film. Eight long years later, she revisits Jenin in May 2023, but it feels like a completely different place. The architecture of military control is far more visible and death ever-present, with pictures and ad-hoc memorials for martyrs spread across the walls and streets of Jenin. Guided by local farmers, street vendors, taxi drivers, and even a geography teacher, it gradually dawns on the filmmaker how everything turns on the dictates of Israeli control. As the surreal truth sets in, the filmmaker returns again and again to the same captive places and landscapes, trying to understand her surroundings through the eyes of everyday Palestinians she meets along the way. Helplessly, she documents everything in sight: the bus station, roundabouts, murals, landmarks, and impromptu shrines. Little did she know that in a post-October 7th reality, her footage would become a haunting record of a town on the eve of yet another major cycle of destruction and violence.

Director’s profile:

Serene Husni Alahmad is a filmmaker, educator, and Arabic-English translator. She holds an MFA in Documentary Media awarded with distinction from Toronto Metropolitan University. Her directorial debut, Zinco (2013), won the “Audience Award for Best Short Documentary” at the Franco-Arab Film Festival, and her short documentary Brown Bread & Apricots (2021) won the Qayqub Award for “Best Canadian Short Film” from the Toronto Arab Film Festival. She is co-writer and co-editor of the feature documentary Eulogy for The Dead Sea (2022), directed by Polina Teif, which traces the environmental impacts of settler colonialism on the vanishing body of water and the communities that live around it.

Producer’s profile:

Rula Nasser began her career with BBC and Discovery Channel before dedicating five years to supporting filmmakers at the Royal Film Commission. In 2011, she launched The Imaginarium Films, spotlighting local tales with global allure. Her recent endeavours, like Hajjan by Abu Baker Shawqi (TIFF 2023) and The Alleys by Basel Ghandour (Locarno 2021), underscore her commitment to showcasing regional and Jordanian narratives. Her latest triumph, Inshalah Wallad by Amjad AlRasheed, premiered at Festival De Cannes 2023 and earned a nomination for the 96th Academy Awards (Oscars) in 2024.

Marc Serpa Francoeur is an Azorean-Canadian documentarian whose work includes The World In Ten Blocks (Hot Docs 2016, Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017), The Head & The Hand (Hot Docs 2018 and DOC NYC 2019, where it was listed as a top contender for the Oscars’ Documentary Short category), and the CBC DocsOriginal No Visible Trauma (VIFF 2020, DOK.fest München2021). Co-produced with ITVS and with the support of the Sundance Institute, Love In The Time Of Fentanyl had its U.S.Premiere at DOC NYC 2022 and broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens in early 2023. Lost Time Media was recently selected in the inaugural round of the Netflix-supported HotDocs Incubator program.