Traces of Home (Palestine)

Total Run Time: 93 min

Country: USA

Year: 2026

Languages: Arabic, English, Spanish

EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY

JOHN LEGUIZAMO, MELISSA BARRERA, and GABOR MATÉ

SYNOPSIS

Colette and her brother Ramsey had a typical American childhood. Raised

in suburban Schaumburg, Illinois, there were birthday parties, school events,

and family outings. Her father, Hosni, and mother, Iza were determined to

give their children a happy life. But as a child, Colette always felt

disconnected from her culture and her parents. Immigrants forced to flee

Palestine and Mexico as children, her parents’ only desire was to make a life

that was simple, safe, and American, but they couldn’t escape the unspoken

divide that separated them as a family. Now, decades later, filmmaker

Colette Ghunim takes us on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery: a

quest to bridge that gap, find her parents’ childhood homes, and confront

the pain of the past to heal their family.

Flipping through photo albums, Ghunim asks her parents why they came to

the United States from Palestine and Mexico, and learns it wasn’t for a

better life. “We were running away from something,” her mother replies. This

surprising revelation kicks off Ghunim’s quest. Through grainy VHS footage

and candid, revealing interviews with her brother and reticent parents, she

paints an intimate portrait of a home steeped in troubling memories, where

it felt, as her brother observes, that “something was always missing.”

When her parents agree to return to the countries they’d left so long ago,

Ghunim begins an exhaustive search for homes that couldn’t possibly still

exist, or could they? As they reflect on their upbringing and reconnect to

their homelands and cultures, Ghunim’s parents begin to uncover the truth

of the past, facing the fallout of political and personal violence (the Nakba

in Palestine and an abusive, alcoholic father in Mexico). Once they close the

distance to home and are standing at its door, they’ll learn what’s possible

to remember and reclaim, and what it means to move forward as a family.

Traces of Home takes us inside the heart of reconciliation, with two

international trips that capture the beauty and complications of

confronting past and present Palestine and Mexico (made all the more

poignant by the erasure of Palestine happening even now). Interweaving

unique animation styles for each country’s story, Ghunim creates films

within the film: an evocative meditation on the nature of memory and loss.

For the children of immigrants and anyone seeking to understand the

legacy of childhood, cross-culture, and generational trauma, Traces of

Home is essential viewing.