\n\tThe LFF website calls Concrete Land \u201can intimate, multi-generational portrait of a mixed-race family fighting displacement and hostility in Jordan.\u201d And it highlights: \u201cThis quietly powerful exploration of familial bonds across generations is a story of finding hope and the importance of a home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCheck out a trailer for the film, which screens in the LFF\u2019s Documentary Competition, starting on Oct. 8, right here.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAhead of the film\u2019s London festival run, Bkerat talked to THR about how the family featured in the film got her into filmmaking, why she just had to tell their story in Concrete Land, and what\u2019s next for her.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow did you first meet the Bedouin family we get to meet in the film, and how did you decide to make a film about them?<\/p>\n
\n\tI used to live in that same area when I was younger. I used to live on the outskirts of Amman. I was the isolated kid, always far from the city, because it wasn\u2019t so developed at that time. I grew up with my friend Ban [Maraqa], and later on in life, we got into a film workshop together. During that time, we were just trying to hang out and [decided to] go outside the city. There was a new road that was recently opened, and I said, \u201cLet\u2019s go check it out.\u201d And then we saw an old woman with a sheep walking behind her. It was a fascinating sight.<\/p>\n
\n\tWe met them exactly like you see them in the film. They take walks every day, and that was my first introduction to the family. But we didn\u2019t see the tents they live in and didn\u2019t know where she came from. We were just talking and offered her some tea, and she said, \u201cNo, come have tea at my place.\u201d So we walked together past huge buildings, and then we saw their tents. It was striking to me.<\/p>\n
\n\tDid that immediately give you the idea for the film?<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the beginning, there was nothing alarming for me. I wasn\u2019t a filmmaker. I didn\u2019t see a story. I wasn\u2019t even into documentary. The workshop we did was for digital filmmaking, but we stayed friends with the family and kept visiting them because we loved them so much. <\/p>\n
\n\tAnd then two years later, there was a workshop for documentary, and we made a short film called Badyra about the sheep in 2017. <\/p>\n
\n\tAfter that, [increased] construction started there, and we asked a person what was happening and if they would keep the [Bedouins] or kick them out. He said, \u201cOf course we\u2019re going to kick them out.\u201d So, then we decided to talk to the family and tell the story of what\u2019s going to happen. The whole idea was just to document [the process]. I had no idea what a film was at that point, even though I had made a short. And the family said, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s see what happens.\u201d And then eight years later, we had Concrete Land.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Concrete Land\u2019 <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Asmahan Bkerat<\/p>\n
\n\tHow much footage did you shoot?<\/p>\n
\n\tHundreds of hours. The part of not knowing what will happen keeps you shooting. I was waiting for an eviction or displacement. The film changed so many times. In the beginning, I was drawn to the grandmother and her sheep, and I was shooting them a lot. And then the family\u2019s little girl was growing up, so she started developing her personality, and I was drawn to her. And then you see the father. So, it ended up as a family film. <\/p>\n
\n\tI didn\u2019t know about all the construction, and how that displaces people, in Jordan.<\/p>\n
\n\tHistorically, Amman is known as agricultural land. It\u2019s very fertile land, and unfortunately, the city decided to develop the capital on that land. If you just drive half an hour outside of Amman, it becomes a complete desert, barren land where you feel like you\u2019re suffocated by buildings. There are not a lot of parks.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn Jordan, we know well what Bedouin life is. But the Palestinian Bedouins we were filming are a minority within a minority because they\u2019re also Afrobedouins. We know that Bedouins coexist with the land. If you take away the land, they have to live in buildings and abandon their life because being with the animals means you have to be on land. It was a slow realization for me throughout making the film that every time I came, there was new construction, new land being lost, more trees being taken down.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs a byproduct of that loss of land, you have this family that cannot exist within the city because there is no more space for them, but they want to keep access to education. Nomadic life is not easy to continue, especially for a family that is displaced. Bedouins historically live within their tribe, and this family lost their tribe, which is in Palestine, so they\u2019re not on their land. They\u2019re not in their community. So they face challenges on many levels. <\/p>\n
\n\tJordanian Bedouins actually get land from the government, but Palestinian Bedouins don\u2019t because they\u2019 are refugees. They don\u2019t have that same status. So it\u2019s a very complex, multi-layered issue. Even I only realized, as I was making the film, how complex it is.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Concrete Land\u2019 <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Asmahan Bkerat<\/p>\n
\n\tDo you see Concrete Land as a way to also show us broader issues and topics worth discussing beyond Jordan? <\/p>\n
My intention for this film actually also is to be a reflection of what\u2019s happening in Palestine. Afro-Palestinians are not just displaced in Jordan; they\u2019re constantly displaced in Palestine. Israel does not recognize their existence. In the film, we hear on TV that Israel is trying to take away their land. They are displaced either way, and that is reflected in the film title in Arabic. It\u2019s Tiyaha, and it means the person who is lost. So it refers to being in a constant state of being lost and having no place to belong. <\/p>\n
\n\tHow did you guys choose the English title, Concrete Land?
I realized that the film was about people losing land, and part of my living experience in Jordan is that it\u2019s mainly made of concrete. You always just see concrete. So, Jordan is known for using concrete in buildings, and we lose land. So it became Concrete Land, also because the two juxtapose each other. Concrete is rigid, cold, and dead; land is living and breathing.<\/p>\n
\n\tIs there anything that you want audiences to take away from the film that we haven\u2019t talked about yet?
I want people to understand that Bedouin life does not equate to poverty. If you see people living in a tent, that doesn\u2019t mean they are poor. That\u2019s something that\u2019s so hard for people to realize. Historically, Bedouins weren\u2019t poor. They chose this kind of life because they wanted it. It\u2019s not like they are forced into it, and modernization is always better. It\u2019s not. <\/p>\n
\n\tHas the family seen the film?<\/p>\n
\n\tNot yet. They don\u2019t have a TV, they don\u2019t have a proper screen in their place. And we didn\u2019t want to show them the film on a small laptop. So we\u2019re trying to figure out booking a small cinema in Jordan. And we\u2019re trying to get the father and daughter to the U.K. for the festival. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Concrete Land\u2019 <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Asmahan Bkerat<\/p>\n
\n\tWill we see more films from you?<\/p>\n
\n\tThe biggest blessing of my life was meeting this family because I\u2019m so happy that I found the career of documentary filmmaking. Even though it\u2019s very, very, very hard, I\u2019m very happy to be in it, and I want to continue in it. <\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019m producing two films: a film about a Palestinian family that is returning to Palestine, which is made up of the family archive. And the other film is about a Jordanian farmer and the water loss in Jordan, because there\u2019s a whole political situation going on with water being stolen by Israel. <\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019m also developing my next feature, which is also about displacement because that\u2019s something that I really care about. It\u2019s something I\u2019m naturally drawn to because I\u2019m also Palestinian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three generations of a Palestinian Bedouin family in Jordan are facing displacement, racism and family conflict in Concrete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[124945,367255,88,2091,325692,206,1049],"class_list":["post-873855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-bfi-london-film-festival","tag-bfi-london-film-festival-2026","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-locarno-2026","tag-movies","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}