LONDON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL
NOVEMBER 13-26, 2020

BARBICAN CINEMA ON DEMAND | LPFF Vimeo On Demand

Ibrahim: A Fate To Define
Lina AlAbed | 2019 | 100’

13 - 26 November
LPFF Vimeo on Demand

On the face of it, Ibrahim AlAbed was an ordinary Palestinian family man with an ordinary job, living in Damascus. But actually, Ibrahim was also Rashid, a  secret member of the Abu Nidal Group, a.k.a. the Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter faction. In 1987 he disappeared, leaving behind a wife and five children, one of whom was Lina AlAbed, the director of this remarkable and eye-opening of this documentary. Travelling to Alexandria, Amman, and Berlin, Lina retraces her father's footsteps and visits relatives in an effort to unearth long-buried family secrets. Often over tea, knitting, or other domestic tasks, she coaxes out facts and speculation about her father and what may or may not have happened to him. 

Ibrahim: A Fate to Define is at once a deeply intimate detective story and an open letter to a father who disappeared when the director was just six years  old. As Ibrahim progresses, the ghostly figure at its centre gradually takes shape  as a complex man with fierce convictions. Beyond this search for a lost parent, Lina also considers a broader, more fraught question: what is it about Palestine  that prompts so many to risk their lives? Over the course of her journey,  which ends at a tiny village cemetery, she finds her answer.