‘All That’s Left of You’ Director on Crafting the Sundance-Bound Palestinian Story as War Broke Out: ‘We Were Making a Movie About What Was Happening, as It Was Happening’

variety.com:

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Palestinian-American multi-hyphenate Cherien Dabis will soon be back in Sundance for the third time – after “May in the Summer” and “Amreeka” – with “All That’s Left of You,” a sweeping epic featuring three generations of Palestinians that provides an origin story of their plight at a very timely moment.

The drama, which takes its cue from a Palestinian teen confronting Israeli soldiers at a West Bank protest – after which his mother recounts the events that led him to that fateful moment – was in pre-production in Palestine when the Israel-Hamas war broke out, forcing Dabis and the crew to relocate.

Below, Dabis speaks to Variety about her personal connection to this ambitious labor of love and what drives her hope for the Palestinian people despite the fact that “the politicians have failed us.” You clearly have a personal connection to the film.

Talk to me about your desire to bring this intergenerational epic to the screen. Well, it’s something I had been thinking about for many years.