All That's Left of You

A woman begins to tell the story. It spans three generations. In 1948 a family has to leave its house in Jaffa; the orange groves are left behind and they settle in a refugee camp. The father is never the same again. In the next generation their son grows up and teaches in the West Bank; he tries to stay out of politics. In the third generation there is his son: in the eighties he joins a demonstration and everything changes that day. Cherien Dabis writes, directs and appears in the film. Saleh Bakri and Adam Bakri are in the cast. It was submitted as Palestine's entry for the Oscars. The form is a generational narrative; the film gives three separate times of the same family in turn and each section has its own manner. The matter it treats is the weight carried; each generation lives the consequence of the previous one's decisions. The narrative is told directly by a mother and that voice ties the sections together. It was shot in Jordan, Cyprus and Greece; because of the conditions for filming in the region the locations were built elsewhere. The ending is left open and the narrative clears no side. Its limit is length; the narrative covers a wide span and some sections are passed over quickly. Who it is for: anyone curious about family narratives grounded in history and Palestinian cinema. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, it is long, and the narrative may be found politically contested.