Nadine Naous

In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass left her native Palestinian village to follow her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to the village and questions for the first time her mother’s bold choices, her chosen exile and the way the women in their family influenced both their lives.

In the fifties, young Alice leaves her natal Swiss mountains for the sunny and vibrant shores of Beirut. She falls madly in love with Joseph, a quirky astrophysicist intent on sending the first Lebanese national into space. Alice quickly fits in among his relatives, but after years of bliss, the civil war threatens their Garden of Eden.

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One day on the phone between Beirut and Paris, my mother told me: Your father has serious financial problems, he must sell his school, he has no choice, the banks have no mercy. I heard the loss. I reeled. I have always been the daughter of the principal of The Lebanese Rabia school and I do not imagine it otherwise. I decided to go back home.