‘Lyd’ Sci-Fi Film Screening Sparks Conversations About Global Issues

In collaboration with the Center for Global Studies, professors Tarik Elseewi and Lauren Osborne invited the Whitman community to watch and discuss the 2023 sci-fi dystopian film “Lyd.” The screening on Oct. 17 was part of the Press in Times of Peril series, which aims to explore systems that connect and divide our world and the role of the press in mediating them.

Narrated from the perspective of the city itself, the film follows a number of people living in the city of Lyd, which was once considered the capital of Palestine. As they tell the story of their past, they paint a picture of Palestinian experience in the city. The film experiments with the documentary genre by showing an animated, utopian alternate reality alongside documentary and archival footage. 

Osborne, Associate Professor of Religion and Director of First Year Seminars, reflected on the emotional power of the film.

“A lot of the conversations about Palestine on campus have been very intellectual, which makes sense—it’s a college campus. But this film, as an art piece, invites us to feel in new ways,” Osborne said. 

In the post-screening discussion, Film and Media Studies majors offered unique perspectives on the cinematic aspects of the film. Students from various majors also discussed the film’s central question—“What would a future look like if things hadn’t turned out this way?”—and said the film led them to imagine their own futures differently.

Elseewi, Associate Professor and Chair of Film and Media Studies and South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, encouraged the audience to watch as many Palestinian films as possible, in order to gain perspective on global issues.

“[These films] can teach us a lot about what it means to be human, what it means to be kind, what it means to be violent and what it means to resist,” Elseewi said.