On the edge of Amman, the Najars, one of the last Afro-Palestinian Bedouin families in the Jordanian capital, live in tents on farmland with their flock and a beloved pet sheep, Badrya. Then luxury villas rise around them, and an eviction notice gives them five days to clear the land. Filmed over eight years, Asmahan Bkerat’s intimate debut watches three generations hold on to a way of life the city wants gone.
On the outskirts of Amman, the Najars live much as their elders always have: in tents on agricultural land, with their flock and a much-loved pet sheep called Badrya. Abu Awad and Hakima, the grandparents, keep to Bedouin ways. Their son Awad drives a cement truck, helping to pour the city that is swallowing them. His ten-year-old daughter, Eman, goes to school and is bullied for her skin and her background. Then the villas arrive, and with them neighbours who want the tents gone. A government notice orders the family to clear their animals within five days or face removal, and one night their tent is slashed open.
Asmahan Bkerat met the family by chance in 2016, stopping for tea near Amman, and filmed them for eight years. The Najars have been displaced before, from the Negev; this film bears witness as it begins again. Meals, songs, the care of the animals and quarrels between generations tell the story, and the losses arrive the way they do in life, one after another, without announcement. Bkerat, who shares the family’s Bedouin roots, had never made a film before she met them. She picked up a camera because she believed their knowledge was too precious to be lost. The result is both a fascinating portrait and an act of keeping a record of perpetual displacement.
Asmahan Bkerat met the family by chance in 2016, stopping for tea near Amman, and filmed them for eight years. The Najars have been displaced before, from the Negev; this film bears witness as it begins again. Meals, songs, the care of the animals and quarrels between generations tell the story, and the losses arrive the way they do in life, one after another, without announcement. Bkerat, who shares the family’s Bedouin roots, had never made a film before she met them. She picked up a camera because she believed their knowledge was too precious to be lost. The result is both a fascinating portrait and an act of keeping a record of perpetual displacement.
