Lyd

This feature-length, sci-fi documentary shares multiple pasts, presents, and futures of the city of Lyd in Palestine/Israel. From the perspective of the city herself, voiced by Palestinian actress Maisa Abd Elhadi, the viewer is guided through the lifespan of a five-thousand-year-old city and its residents. Lyd was once a thriving Palestinian city with a rich history. In 636AD, It was even considered the first capital of Palestine. When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, Lyd became an Israeli city, and in the process, hundreds of Lyd’s Palestinian residents were massacred by Israeli forces, and most of the city’s 50,000 Palestinian residents were exiled. Today, the city has a Jewish Israeli majority and a Palestinian minority and is disinvested and divided by racism and violence. For Palestinians, Lyd’s story is a painful and tragic fall from grace, which is why our film dares to ask the question: what would the city be like had the Israeli occupation of Lyd never happened?

Using never-before-seen archival footage of the Israeli soldiers who carried out the massacre and expulsion, the city explains that these events were so devastating that they fractured her reality, and now there are two Lyds –– one occupied and one free. As the film unfolds, documentary portions follow a chorus of characters through their daily lives, creating a tapestry of the Palestinian experience of this city, and vivid animations use the language of speculative fiction to envision an alternate reality where the same documentary characters live free from the trauma of the past and the violence of the present. As the film cuts between fantastical and documentary realities, it ultimately leaves the viewer questioning which future should prevail.