The Poem We Sang is a 20-minute, black and white and color, experimental documentary that meditates on love and longing - the love of one's family and the longing for one's home, contemplated through overcoming the trauma of loss of family home and of forced migration, transforming lifelong regrets into a healing journey of creative catharsis and bearing witness. 

The meditation on family love and longing for home centers on an audio recording in which my uncle Elias was telling my brother how our family had to flee from the bombing in 1948 and run away from our family home in Jerusalem, Palestine, without personal belongings, thinking that the family would return home in a week's time. Weaving through my uncle's voice-recording is my recounting of some of my most cherished memories of him. Connecting the parallel solitudes of my uncles' sadness of losing their family home, and of my own regrets of not having spent more time with him, and of my neglect to prioritize love for family and home amidst my busy life, Is a powerful poem by Palestinian poet Khalil Al-Sakakini, that my uncle and my father used to recite to me and my siblings over and over again during our childhood. The Poem We Sang is at once deeply personal and fiercely nostalgic - a tribute to my uncle Elias and my family, and an ode to our lost family home in Palestine.

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