Aida Returns

Carol Mansour

In Arabic and English, with English subtitles

Close to four years after Aida’s passing, the director’s friend and colleague Tanya who lives in Jerusalem came to visit Beirut. When she heard about Aida’s wishes and yearning for Yafa, Tanya suggested that she herself carries the ashes back. The film accompanies director, Carol Mansour, as she engineers a way to return her mother to Yafa in search of eternal rest and peace for her. A return that is aided by an unlikely set of friends and strangers all coming together to facilitate what should have been a simple journey. This journey is at the same time very private and personal, while resonating with hundreds of thousands of Alzheimer’s sufferers and their families as well as hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees awaiting their return home. A tribute to the lost past of the director’s family, an attempt to restore part of both an individual and a collective memory, and a poetic nod and affirmation to all those exiled Palestinians forbidden from returning to their hometowns, even after death.

The event will be followed by a discussion

Carol Mansour is an independent documentary film maker with over 25 years in documentary production who has achieved international recognition and prestigious honors for her films, with over seventy worldwide film festival screenings and official selections.
Carol’s work reflects her concern for human rights and social justice, covering issues such as migrant workers, refugees, environmental issues, mental health, rights of the disabled, war and memory, right to health, and child labor. Carol is Lebanese/ Canadian of Palestinian origin.