All that's left of you: A deeply moving portrayal of the Palestinian experience

A little bit of background📃

All that's left of you premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025 and has since won multiple prestigious film festival awards. It was one of three Palestinian films shortlisted for an Oscar for Best International Feature Film for the 98th Academy Awards, a place that eventually went to The voice of Hind Rajab.

I have already posted on my journey to understanding the Palestinian experience, in part shaped by reading three important books on the subject. I wanted to see All that's left of you to continue that journey. I write this post as the United States and Israel continue to wage an unjustified war on Iran and Lebanon and as the genocide in Gaza continues. These atrocities have had a profound effect on me, particularly for their stark evidence of the world's selective humanity and the lack of understanding, empathy and compassion for Palestinians. It is through that lens that I came to my viewing of All that's left of you.

All that's left of you | Australian release April 2026 | Viewed April 2026 | Directed by Cherien Dabis | Main cast: Adam Bakri, Saleh Bakri, Cherien Dabis, Mohammad Bakri, and Muhammad Abed Elrahman

The story📖

The film opens as Palestinian teen, Noor, is badly injured in a West Bank protest in 1988. Then we see an aged Hanan, Noor's mother, recounting the family's story of their struggle for survival and to remain hopeful and compassionate in the wake of the Israeli occupation of their homeland. Hanan's story goes back to Jaffa and the formation of Israel, when Noor's grandparents and his father and his siblings were forced out of their home and into a refugee camp in the West Bank. The film spans some seventy years of intergenerational trauma. It begins with the 1948 Nakba and the family's expulsion from their home in Jaffa. Then it moves to 1978 when Salim, Noor's father and now a teacher, celebrates his sister's wedding and her impending migration to Toronto. The third piece takes us back to the film's opening, to the First Intifada in 1988 when Noor is part of the uprising. The final act of the film leaves us in 2022, when Noor's parents return to Jaffa as Canadian citizens.

Cherien Dabis, born in the United States to Palestinian refugees, wrote, directed and starred in the film as Hanan. I believe the story is based on her family's experiences. The actors who play Noor's grandfather as a young man and an older man and the actor who plays Noor's father are from the same family of respected Palestinian actors (father and two sons). The original plan was to film in Palestine, but Israeli actions in Gaza following October 7 forced the crew to evacuate two weeks before the scheduled start date. Production was relocated to Cyprus, Greece and Jordan. Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo, both vocal supporters of the Palestinian cause, produced the film.

My thoughts on the film💭

All that's left of you is one of the saddest and most moving films I have seen in a long time. I went into the film expecting it to be so, but my viewing was deepted by Dabis's writing and directing. She expertly guides the cast to show how dehumanising occupation has been for Palestinians in a deeply raw and authentic way. All the actors in the film deliver accomplished performances that made me connect with the story and the Palestinian fight for their humanity. Their emotions are so beautifully conveyed without the need for overburdening the viewer with exposition. I felt every inch of their anger, pain and sorrow.

Dabis expertly delivers her messages to the audience in a natural way, through measured but powerful scenes that cry out for recognition of the Palestinian people. One of the most vivid examples of this is the scene in the 1978 part of the film, when a young Noor and his father, Salim, are stopped by a group of IDF soldiers on their way back home after collecting medicine for the ailing Sharif. The dehumanising of Salim (and in reference to Hanan) in front of his son was hard to watch, but it is such a compelling and damning insight into the Israeli's treatment of Palestinians. Dabis weaves instances of the many forms of dehumanisation and degradation into the narrative, from the physical violence of Sharif's imprisonment in 1948, to the psychological violence of the aforementioned scene, to the bureaucratic. The latter is heartbreakingly depicted by the family's struggle to seek medical treatment for Noor after he is shot during the 1978 Intifada.

While there are important messages conveyed by the family's story, poetry is cleverly employed to showcase the beauty of the Arabic language, using the Egyptian poem I am the sea to link the family's story from the loss of their home and orange grove in 1948 to Salim and Hanan's touching visit to Jaffa at the end of the film. Dabis also shows the potential for language to dehumanise, where the land of the Palestinian people now belongs to a people who do not speak their language. Dabis extends her cast's exceptional performances to capture the heartbreak of occupation with sweeping visuals of the bleak landscape that conveys the loss of land and home.

The final piece of the film is both deeply sad and hopeful, as Salim and Hanan must make a difficult decision after Noor's critical injuries. The symbolism of organ donation - and Hanan's conversation with Ari, an Israeli recipient of Noor's heart - beautifully sums up Dabis's intent with the film. The heart as a metaphor for that which makes us human binds all the threads of the film together, leaving the audience with a stunning sunset scene of Salim and Hanan's return to Jaffa.

In sum📝

It took me some time to compose myself after the credits rolled. Cherien Dabis's film will haunt me forever. The film is a must-see if you seek to understand the Palestinian experience. All that's left of you...is your humanity.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐