In Jerusalem, Kamal, a 60-year-old Palestinian man, is ordered by an Israeli court to pay a large social security debt allegedly owed by his son Wael. But Wael drowned in the Red Sea decades ago, or so Kamal was told. When no official record of his son’s death can be found anywhere, the paperwork that should have closed a painful chapter instead throws it wide open. Kamal follows the only remaining lead, setting out to uncover what really happened to Wael, and forcing a family to face the guilt, pain and flaws it has carried ever since.

Inspired by true events in his own family, Muayad Alayan’s fourth feature returns to the city at the centre of his work. A Jerusalem where soldiers, armed settlers and home demolitions are part of daily life, yet where people go on living, loving and finding something to look forward to. As Kamal’s search unfolds, old certainties begin to give way, and a past he thought was long settled refuses to stay quietly buried. At its heart is a love story about family, and a love-and-hate letter to the director’s only home. A portrait of a father, a family and a city still searching for answers, torn between nostalgia for what it once was and grief for what it is being forced to become.