Muayad Alayan, the director of the film, is momentarily disturbed by a producer asking him to adjust his position for a better shot. Alayan, slim and in his late thirties, calmly shifts. He resumes, clearly familiar with this scenario and the narrative he's about to recite.

His latest film, "A House in Jerusalem," chronicles a British Jewish girl and her father's move into a Jerusalem home inherited from her grandfather. But beyond this story, the film delves into numerous intertwined traumas spanning various families, generations, and continents, all converging in the well-lit rooms of the grand house in the film's title.

Jerusalem, divided since 1948 and with its eastern half under occupation since 1967, remains a city of profound splits, echoing its historical disputes. Rebecca, the young girl, accompanies her father Michael to Jerusalem after a family tragedy.

In Jerusalem, Rebecca meets Rasha, a spirit of a Palestinian girl mired in her own tragedy dating back to the 1948 Nakba, a time when over 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced to pave the way for Israeli settlements.

Alayan speaks of his deep-seated bond with Jerusalem's troubled past, recounting both his family's forced expulsion during the Nakba and the lasting memories of lost lives and neighborhoods. Reflecting on a nighttime drive through West Jerusalem about fifteen years ago, Alayan recalls a moment that inspired his film.

He vividly remembers passing through his family's old neighborhood known through his grandfather's butcher shop stories, now replaced by monasteries, churches, and schools pre-dating 1948. There, he noticed a cab parked in the driveway of a grand old house he recognized, likely belonging to a newly immigrated Jewish family.

As he watched the family unload their luggage under a ghostly streetlamp light, he pondered, "What if this girl meets the ghosts of the previous residents of this house? What stories is her family telling her about the house?"

Memories of the Nakba

Unaware of the region's history and with her father absorbed in his grief, Rebecca, along with the audience, starts to unravel the past's tragedy. Over the next hour and three-quarters, her exploration uncovers a poignant tale of past horrors entangling present traumas, highlighting themes of grief, loss, and longing interwoven with Jerusalem's past and present realities.

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through the Old City's Muslim Quarter, displaying racist slogans and attacking Palestinians, mere miles from Alayan's current residence. Meanwhile, in Gaza, the death toll from Israel’s assault has exceeded 37,000.

"Thousands of Palestinians were displaced in the Nakba of 1948," Alayan states, reflecting on the film's context as contemporary displacements and deaths mirror past tragedies. Using the eyes of a child, the film juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the harsh realities of history and occupation.

Alayan highlights the narratives taught to some Israelis, like claims that Palestine was empty or that Palestinians voluntarily left their homes. These tales starkly contrast with the now-vanished Palestinian communities, relegated to history or hidden in water tanks like relics of an erased civilization.

Through Rebecca, a British girl unfamiliar with the region’s past, and Rasha, a Palestinian girl eternally linked to the Nakba, Alayan bridges past and present. Their stories intersect via a railway linking Jerusalem to the refugee camps in Bethlehem, a potent symbol of their shared history.

Alayan reminisces about his father, who could navigate the tracks from his childhood days, the railway winding through villages now obliterated by Israeli infrastructure.

The film ultimately emerges as a profound examination of how historical traumas pervade the present, invoking contemplation and reflection on Jerusalem’s layered past.