The Middle East has many facets as a tree as many branches – and for one such woman who resides in a Palestinian refugee camp, one of about fifty-eight, a chance meeting fifteen years earlier and the question of whether film-maker Sarah Beddington was happy was the seed for the new documentary FADIA’S TREE.
Trained as a visual artist and a graduate of Central St. Martins back in 1996, Beddington’s own journey from a South-West English village to the rural landscape of Palestine and surround worlds has helped shape her vision for her debut feature film, which at first glance is a simple tale of trying to locate her friend Fadia’s spiritual symbol in the form of an ancient mulberry tree that stands as a defining point of reference and legacy for her family.
Fadia is based in Lebanon, the complexities of her predicament from decades of conflict and misguided political agreements that have denied refugees like her the chance to return home and enjoy what is truly their own.
In FADIA’S TREE, Beddington’s evolution to discover what the significances are from discovering the migration of birds across the various Middle-Eastern territories, a place that is far broader and undiscovered to outside eyes who seldom ever see it as more than just an eternal war zone and pawn in the West’s own desire for global, historical success in political circles.
The human story of the film-maker and Fadia’s evolving decade and a half friendship and relationship is captured, but there are many other stories to behold here, be it the children in the camps, the importance of the birds and their own place around the territory and the landscapes revealed here. One hopes that there will be more room for Beddington to elaborate and expand on the other stories and perhaps explore the essence of spirituality and where the Middle East can thrive as a beautiful place overall.
