4/15, 5:30 doors, 6:30 show
Suggested donatation $20 at the door.
No one turned away for lack of funds.

Director/Producer Rami Younis will be in person for a live Q+A after the film.

Made by a Palestinian from Lyd and a Jewish American, Lyd provides much-needed context for this moment, as it goes deep into the history of the Nakba from the perspective of Palestinians who survived. The film imagines an alternate reality where Palestine was never occupied and Palestinians of all religions (Muslims, Christians, and Jews) live in a liberated Palestine. Narrated by Palestinian actress Maisa Abd Elhadi who personifies the city, the viewer is guided through the lifespan of a five-thousand-year-old city and its residents.

Directed by Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland, the film Lyd (the Arabic name of Lod, a city now in Israel) is about a 5,000-year-old bustling Palestinian town that was conquered when the State of Israel was established in 1948, and the film Lyd is the story of that city’s rise and fall. An exploration of what it once was, and what it is now, in the context of the continuing conflicts and the war in Gaza, Lyd’s excavation of one community’s complex history offers us not only lessons but possible futures.
As the film unfolds, a chorus of characters creates a tapestry of the Palestinian experience of this city and the trauma left by the massacre and expulsion, while vivid animations envision an alternate reality where the same characters live free from the trauma of the past and the violence of the present. Using never-before-seen archival footage of the Israeli soldiers who carried out the massacre and expulsion, the personified city explains that these events were so devastating that they fractured reality, and now there are two Lyds — one occupied and one free. As the film cuts between fantastical and documentary realities, it ultimately leaves the viewer questioning what future should prevail.

Rami Younis is a Palestinian filmmaker, writer, journalist and activist from Lyd. He was a 2019-20 Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School. As a journalist, he mainly wrote for the online magazine +972 and served as both writer and editor of its Hebrew sister site, “local call”, a journalistic project he co-founded, designed to challenge Israeli mainstream journalism outlets. Rami served as a parliamentary consultant and media spokesperson for Palestinian member of Knesset (Israeli parliament) Haneen Zoabi. Rami is also co-founder and manager of the first-ever Palestine Music Expo, an event that connects the local Palestinian music scene to the worldwide industry. Younis is the host of the Arabic-language daily news show, “On the Other Hand.”