Aisha's Story

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Aisha's Story
Directed by Elizabeth Vibert
Chen Wang
Written byElizabeth Vibert
Produced byElizabeth Vibert
Salam Barakat Guenette
StarringAisha Azzam
CinematographyChen Wang
Isaac Hatfield
Edited byElizabeth Vibert
Chen Wang
Music byBasel Zayed
Shoko Inoue
Bashar Smairat
Release date
  • April 26, 2025 (2025-04-26)(Hot Docs)
Running time
62 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageArabic

Aisha's Story is a 2025 Canadian documentary film, directed by Elizabeth Vibert and Chen Wang and co-produced by Salam Barakat Guenette. [1] The film centres on Aisha Azzam, a Palestinian woman living in the Baqa'a refugee camp in Jordan, who runs a grain mill to prepare the cereals and herbs essential to Palestinian cuisine. The film has been called "a profound exploration of how cultural identity is preserved through the tangible rituals of food and labor," and "a testament to the ways food remains central to Palestinian identity, rooted as it is in history, tradition, and the ongoing struggle for survival and resilience." [2]

Vibert first met Azzam when she was in Jordan in 2018 screening the film The Thinking Garden, which she wrote and co-produced with director Christine Welsh. Vibert and Azzam then began the oral history collaboration on which the film is based. [3]

Aisha's Story had its world premiere at the 2025 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, [4] where it won the Audience Award for Mid-Length Films. [5] It then screened as the opening film of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival, [6] and went on to festival screenings in Jordan, Jerusalem, Morocco, Türkiye, the US, UK, France, and Italy. The film also pre-screened at the Toronto Women Film Festival, a University of Toronto competition for as-yet-unreleased films by emerging women filmmakers, where it won the award for Best Feature Documentary. [7]


References

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