About The Film * Lyd In Exile

In 1947 the ancient city of Lyd was in the center of Palestine, a thriving hub that connected Lebanon to Egypt by train and Palestine to the world by plane. A year later, when Lyd fell under siege by Zionist soldiers, the city resisted and was forever changed. These days, the train no longer runs between Lebanon and Egypt, and the airport is no longer open to most Palestinians. Lyd (Lod in Hebrew) remains a contested space. Within Israel’s Green Line, it is best known as the epicenter of Israel’s drug trade, plagued by violence and racism. For the Palestinians that still call the city home, its former glory is not forgotten. Through the voices of Palestinians expelled in 1948 and the Zionist soldiers who expelled them, Lyd In Exile reconstructs the events of the massacre and expulsion that splintered the city. It chronicles the ongoing battle for the Lyd through the stories of a Palestinian educator struggling to keep her identity alive for the next generation, a third generation Lydian living in Balata refugee camp who may never return home, and a far right wing mayor who subsidizes the construction of Jewish-only housing while endorsing the demolition of Palestinian homes. This feature documentary is the story of the ongoing destruction of a city that once connected Palestine to the world, and now represents the continuation of the Nakba that never ended. However, the film also radically re-imagines what the city would be like if the massacre and expulsion had never happen. Through fictional, animated sequences that we are scripting collaboratively with our documentary participants, the film uses the language of speculative fiction to imagine this alternate present. By collaboratively re-imagining the present we are reclaiming the historical narrative and the space to envision a more just reality for Palestinians and Jewish people that is not shaped by catastrophe.

Topic Summary

Documentaries about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict often begin with the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza following the SixDay War. Further, they are often told solely from the point of view of Israeli soldiers or officials (Waltz With Bashir, The Gatekeepers). Few films touch on the Nakba, the foundational violence that created the State of Israel, and even fewer tell this history from the Palestinian point of view. Thus erasing its history from canonical documentary film that reaches an international audience.

In its treatment of the present day, Lyd In Exile offers stories about the challenges faced by Palestinian citizens of Israel who, during the Nakba, were not expelled to East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, or elsewhere. These Palestinians make up twenty percent of Israel’s population but are often invisible in the Palestinian narrative and are systematically discriminated against in all sectors of Israeli society. One character described her challenge to “walk between drops of rain,” as she manages the constant precarity of being a citizen

of an oppressive state while living in the land of her ancestors.

According to UNRWA, there are over 5 million Palestinian refugees worldwide. Lyd In Exile shows a broad range of this experience by portraying refugees trapped in camps in the West Bank and Palestinian families exiled across the globe. We hope that greater under standing of how the founding of Israel created the Palestinian refugee crisis will lead towards greater support for Palestinian human rights. Additionally, we hope to release this film during 2018, which marks the 70th anniversary of the Nakba and we will use the events surrounding the anniversary to focus attention on this buried history.