Aida Returns

Carol Mansour – Canada 2023 – 76 minutes – spoken language: Arabic, English, with English subtitles

Close to four years after Aida’s passing away, the director’s friend and colleague Tanya, who lives in Ramallah, visits Beirut. When she hears about Aida’s wishes and yearning for Yafa, Tanya suggests that she herself carry the ashes back; 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. Despite the ongoing occupation of Palestinian Territories, no effort is spared to grant Aida’s final wishes to rest in peace in the place she grew up.

This award-winning film documents the personal story of a woman named Aida, her daughter, a constellation of friends and unlikely acquaintances dealing with loss and belonging, as well as the urgency to remember and certainly not forget. Aida’s Alzheimer’s condition and her final wishes to return to the place of her childhood, Yafa, results in an intimate documentary where we witness pain, joy and humorous absurdity in the plan recorded by Aida’s daughter, filmmaker Carol Mansour. What is lost and what is gained is merged with the weight of forgetting and the urgency to remember within a family, a friend group but also among displaced Palestinians dispersed around the world. A poignant personal film about longing for a homecoming underscores the power of love and hope for the future.

This screening is part of the Studium Generale Program of the WUR. Free entrance for WUR-cardholders. Reserve your ticket under “10-zittenkaart”.