Director(s)Lina Abdelkarim, Mohammed Al-Mashharawi
Synopsis
Ten-year-old Yasmeen, a Palestinian-American girl, forms a close friendship with Sumoud, a refugee from Gaza. When a vivid dream transports Yasmeen into Sumoud’s world, the distance between their very different lives begins to disappear. Seen through the eyes of a child, the film explores displacement, resilience, and the fragile boundary between safety and survival, posing a quiet yet urgent question: What if this had been you?
Director Details
Lina Abdulkarim is a Palestinian-American mother, writer, and children’s author, and the writer and creator of her debut animated short, It Could Have Been Me, adapted from her award-recognized book of the same title. Born in Jerusalem in 1987 and originally from the West Bank, Lina trained as a healthcare professional before leaving her career to raise her children and later becoming an author and filmmaker, using literature and film to explore generational displacement, resilience, the effects of war through a child’s eyes, and to amplify underrepresented stories.
