For more than seventy eight years, the idea of return has shaped Palestinian political imagination, personal memory, and collective identity. Yet return is not a single or stable concept. It is layered, inherited, contested, and often unfinished.

This evening explores return as an intergenerational condition, a dream passed from grandparents to parents to children, sometimes without ever being fulfilled. What does it mean to inherit a return you did not experience yourself? What does it mean to return to a place that exists only through stories, memory, and fragments of history?

The session begins with a screening of Return to Haifa (1982), directed by Kassem Hawal and adapted from the celebrated novella by Ghassan Kanafani. The film offers one of the most profound literary and cinematic reflections on the dilemmas of return, confronting questions of loss, belonging, responsibility, and identity.

Following the screening, researcher Dr Hala Alnaji will lead a collective reflection drawing on personal narratives and historical experiences of displacement. The discussion will explore how return is imagined across generations, how it moves between political right and emotional longing, and what uncertainties emerge when we begin to ask, what happens after return?

Program

19:30 Introduction

Opening framing of the concept of return

19:45 Film Screening

Return to Haifa (1982)

Directed by Kassem Hawal

Arabic with English subtitles

21:15 Collective Reflection & Discussion

Guided conversation on memory, displacement, and inherited return

21:50 Closing reflections

Language

Film in Arabic with English subtitles

Discussion in Arabic and English

Free Constribution