Give as a gift
This program explores personal and political stories from Palestine and the diaspora — reflecting on memory, resilience, identity, and everyday life.
After building a life in New York City, Nassib returns to his Palestinian hometown of Shefa-’Amr after 50 years to revive an ancestral garden. Filmmaker Hana captures her whole family’s search for belonging as she intimately films the rituals and practices around their first olive harvest.
Director Biography - Hana Elias
Hana is a Palestinian-American documentary filmmaker and journalist. Her work explores the interrelationships between land, and identity in the Middle East and the United States. She aims to center the perspectives of people from underrepresented backgrounds as they imagine alternative realities and challenge hegemonic narratives. This ranges from her first film, 'The Rooftops of Jerusalem', a coming of age story about Palestinian parkour players in Jerusalem’s old city, and 'Holding Fire', about a grassroots movement of Muslim immigrant women fighting for their rights in the New York City political arena. She has been working on documentaries for the last 8 years, as a video editor, camera person, and associate producer and most recently was a Video News fellow at Democracy Now.
Director Statement
By continuing to use agrarian practices that have existed for thousands of years, and planting a diverse range of native plants, my parent’s garden in Shefa’Amr is a testament to the richness Palestinian agrarian heritage. I started filming this project organically as I spent time helping my father in the garden. As a Palestinian-American, I hope that my experience as someone from the diaspora returning to learn about my family’s origin can relate to global land back movements, and generations of people in the diaspora similarly questioning identity and belonging. While we witness how Palestinian land is burned and poisoned, this film demonstrates the richness of Palestinian culture and love for the land that is unbreakable and lives deep in our bones.
Asmahan Bkerat (Producer)
Asmahan Bkerat is a Palestinian-Jordanian documentary filmmaker. She started her career as a photographer and social justice advocate. Bkerat’s first short documentary “Badrya'' won the Jury Prize for Best MiniDoc at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. She is currently directing/producing her first feature- length documentary “CONCRETE LAND” and producing the feature doc “HARVEST MOON”, and “IF THESE STONES COULD TALK” alongside a few other short doc films. She is an alumna of Sundance, Hot Docs, IDFA, DFI, SDI, The Whickers, The American Film Showcase, Cannes Docs, Dhaka doc lab, DMZ, Doc Edge, AIDC and IMS.
Anakha Arikara (Producer)
Anakha Arikara is a documentary filmmaker from Bangalore, India. She began her career as a food journalist, before expanding to reporting on stories of women, culture, and technology at The Better India. Her first documentary short, “Aged and Confused” follows a foster youth as he ages out of foster care in New York City. As an editor, her work has been featured on Al Jazeera and The Kitchn. Anakha is currently based in New York City, where she is a production manager at Story Syndicate, a production company focusing on premium documentary content.
This program explores personal and political stories from Palestine and the diaspora — reflecting on memory, resilience, identity, and everyday life.
After building a life in New York City, Nassib returns to his Palestinian hometown of Shefa-’Amr after 50 years to revive an ancestral garden. Filmmaker Hana captures her whole family’s search for belonging as she intimately films the rituals and practices around their first olive harvest.
Director Biography - Hana Elias
Hana is a Palestinian-American documentary filmmaker and journalist. Her work explores the interrelationships between land, and identity in the Middle East and the United States. She aims to center the perspectives of people from underrepresented backgrounds as they imagine alternative realities and challenge hegemonic narratives. This ranges from her first film, 'The Rooftops of Jerusalem', a coming of age story about Palestinian parkour players in Jerusalem’s old city, and 'Holding Fire', about a grassroots movement of Muslim immigrant women fighting for their rights in the New York City political arena. She has been working on documentaries for the last 8 years, as a video editor, camera person, and associate producer and most recently was a Video News fellow at Democracy Now.
Director Statement
By continuing to use agrarian practices that have existed for thousands of years, and planting a diverse range of native plants, my parent’s garden in Shefa’Amr is a testament to the richness Palestinian agrarian heritage. I started filming this project organically as I spent time helping my father in the garden. As a Palestinian-American, I hope that my experience as someone from the diaspora returning to learn about my family’s origin can relate to global land back movements, and generations of people in the diaspora similarly questioning identity and belonging. While we witness how Palestinian land is burned and poisoned, this film demonstrates the richness of Palestinian culture and love for the land that is unbreakable and lives deep in our bones.
Asmahan Bkerat (Producer)
Asmahan Bkerat is a Palestinian-Jordanian documentary filmmaker. She started her career as a photographer and social justice advocate. Bkerat’s first short documentary “Badrya'' won the Jury Prize for Best MiniDoc at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. She is currently directing/producing her first feature- length documentary “CONCRETE LAND” and producing the feature doc “HARVEST MOON”, and “IF THESE STONES COULD TALK” alongside a few other short doc films. She is an alumna of Sundance, Hot Docs, IDFA, DFI, SDI, The Whickers, The American Film Showcase, Cannes Docs, Dhaka doc lab, DMZ, Doc Edge, AIDC and IMS.
Anakha Arikara (Producer)
Anakha Arikara is a documentary filmmaker from Bangalore, India. She began her career as a food journalist, before expanding to reporting on stories of women, culture, and technology at The Better India. Her first documentary short, “Aged and Confused” follows a foster youth as he ages out of foster care in New York City. As an editor, her work has been featured on Al Jazeera and The Kitchn. Anakha is currently based in New York City, where she is a production manager at Story Syndicate, a production company focusing on premium documentary content.