The Mother Refugees

Four women refugees in Lebanon who have spent years raising their children in camps, hope one day to return home.

"When I first opened my eyes we were running from bombs, going from house to house in Beirut," recalls Dima al-Joundi, who was born in Lebanon during the civil war. Her memories of school are synonymous with the sounds of explosions. At 18, al-Joundi went to study cinema in Belgium. There, she says, she discovered the true meaning of exile, alienation, and loneliness.

Some years later, as a professional filmmaker, she has drawn on that experience as she gives a voice to four women refugees in Beirut.

The "mother refugees", as she calls them and to whom she became very close, taught her the real meaning of exile.

One of them is Mariam al-Sakka, who fled Palestine when she was two months old soon after the Israeli occupation in 1948. Despite having now lived in Lebanon for 65 years, al-Sakka says as a Palestinian she has limited rights. She cannot work in state institutions or open a store - and her life is constantly surveilled.