Synopsis:

A diasporic Palestinian filmmaker struggles to complete a documentary about returning to Jenin, her family’s hometown in the Occupied West Bank, when her footage takes on radically new meaning and urgency in the wake of October 7th.

Armed with a Canadian passport, a diasporic Palestinian filmmaker travels to the agricultural town her parents fled following the 1967 Israeli oc- cupation of the West Bank. Seeing Jenin for the first time, she is unable to reconcile the nostalgic memories of the exiled with the daily realities of Palestinians living under military rule. Guided by local farmers, vendors, taxi drivers, and even a geography teacher, she tries to capture an elusive place, unaware that post-October 7th her footage would become a haunting record of a besieged community on the eve of yet another major cycle of violent destruction and erasure.

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.