Librarians and Archivists with Palestine (LAP), alongside the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA), is partnering with the directors of Lyd for an event honoring and celebrating Palestine, Palestinian history, and Palestinian liberation.

Please join us for a screening of Lyd, the launch of a new educational packet created to accompany the film (available for pre-purchase!), and a Q&A with director Sarah Ema Friedland and LAP.

This online event is open to everyone, and is a place for librarians, archivists, and information workers, as well as educators and the public, to come together to learn more about the city of Lyd through the lens of a sci-fi documentary.

Please click here to donate. All proceeds will be donated to support Palestinian education and culture.

This event will be screened through Kinema. Event information (including link access) will be sent out to those who register.

More about the film:

“This feature-length, sci-fi documentary shares multiple pasts, presents, and futures of the city of Lyd in Palestine/Israel. From the perspective of the city herself, voiced by Palestinian actress Maisa Abd Elhadi, the viewer is guided through the lifespan of a five-thousand-year-old city and its residents.

Lyd was once a thriving Palestinian city with a rich history. In 636AD, It was even considered the first capital of Palestine. When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, Lyd became an Israeli city, and in the process, hundreds of Lyd’s Palestinian residents were massacred by Israeli forces, and most of the city’s 50,000 Palestinian residents were exiled. Today, the city has a Jewish Israeli majority and a Palestinian minority and is disinvested and divided by racism and violence. For Palestinians, Lyd’s story is a painful and tragic fall from grace, which is why our film dares to ask the question: what would the city be like had the Israeli occupation of Lyd never happened?”