Like The Tide

Darine Hotait

United States of America / 2025 / Fiction / 23’4”I2604947

BO Visionner Images

SYNOPSIS

Inspired by a true story, Like the Tide follows Yara, a Palestinian American screenwriter in Los Angeles, whose online Arabic lessons with Hana, a poet and teacher in Gaza, blossom into a bond of language, humor, and shared ambition. When war erupts and Hana vanishes from her screen, Yara is left in Los Angeles, refreshing her phone as Gaza descends into chaos. Wrestling with grief and survivor’s guilt, she turns to her Amo Zu, whose dream of opening a Palestinian restaurant falters under political pressure. They become each other’s refuge. As Hana’s silence persists, Yara walks away from the job that muted her voice to honor Hana and her community through her writing. By holding space for grief alongside love and resilience, Like the Tide invites audiences to see the Palestinian struggle not as a distant political abstraction, but as a lived human reality.

GÉNÉRIQUE