Cinematic Rebellion: From Los Angeles to Palestine

"This film is built off of truth and rich history. Behind this film are piles of personal stories, family histories, settler-colonial history, and folkloric Palestinian oral stories that existed pre-1948. As part of the diaspora, grandparents and elders serve as a direct line to Palestine. With that generation disappearing, a new, stronger connection is being developed. Behind that connection exists a flourishing fusion of oral histories, family relics, embroidery, epigenetics, and traditions, essentially everything behind an indigenous existence that is adapting to its modern surroundings."

Reem Jubran’s UCLA thesis film sees a young Palestinian woman whisked away through time from present day California to 1936 Ramallah, after diving into a secluded swimming pool. Don’t Be Long, Little Bird is born of Reem Jubran’s desire to speak to her grandmother and preserve a heritage that has been so vulnerable to constant displacement and attempts at erasure. Reem is keen to stress the need for the Palestinian diaspora to preserve cultural memory and celebrates the efforts and sacrifices of previous generations who have fought to keep that connection between Palestinians and their ancestral homeland alive.

The film is screening in London, at ArtHouse Crouch End, as part of a programme called Cinematic Rebellion: From Los Angeles to Palestine.

Don’t Be Long, Little Bird is paired with LA Rebellion: A Cinematic Movement (2025, 56m). Following the Watts Riots of 1965, UCLA filmmaking students pushed to increase enrollment of Black students on to the course. "L.A Rebellion" refers these efforts that led the group to create an alternative, independent Black cinema that more adequately reflected the struggles faced by Black communities. The programme highlights the connection between the two cohorts of filmmaking students reappropriating storytelling as a central component of both cultural legacy and liberation movements.

The screening will be held on 5 June, 20:15 followed by a live panel discussion, including director Reem Jubran. Tickets and info here.