Boutique sales company Odd Slice Films has acquired worldwide rights to documentary “Concrete Land,” the debut feature of Palestinian-Jordanian director Asmahan Bkerat, ahead of its world premiere in Locarno Film Festival‘s Semaine de la Critique.
Eight years in the making, “Concrete Land” follows one of the last Afro-Palestinian Bedouin families living on the outskirts of Amman, Jordan. As luxury villas encroach on the agricultural land they have long called home, the Najar family faces mounting pressure to abandon their traditional way of life. Forced to give up their animals and confronted with eviction, they struggle to preserve their identity while their 10-year-old daughter, Eman, navigates discrimination at school and dreams of a future that doesn’t require leaving her heritage behind.
Bkerat said, “My passion for storytelling is deeply tied to telling stories of my people. Their erasure is my erasure. I wasn’t a filmmaker before meeting the Najars. This film was born out of the threat they faced, the brutality and destruction of the land, a threat that compelled me to pick up a camera, to document what was left of it and them. I believed their beauty was too precious to be lost, their knowledge too vital to be erased. Through this film, I hope to honor their stories, to preserve their existence, the love of the land and the people who belong to it can never be extinguished.”
