Filmmaker Colette Ghunim embarks on journeys with her parents to find the ancestral houses they were forced to flee as children in Mexico and Palestine. Colette’s initial desire to heal her disconnect from her cultures and her parents reveals an internal quest to discover home within herself.
Colette Ghunim grew up with a typical American childhood in suburban Illinois. Her father, Hosni, and mother, Iza were determined to give her and her brother, Ramsey, a happy life. Yet something always felt missing - Colette always felt disconnected from both her cultures and her parents. Forced to flee Palestine and Mexico as children, her parents’ only desire was to make a life that was simple, safe, and American. Emotional walls built out of their suppressed trauma drew her family further apart over the years. Now, decades later, filmmaker Colette Ghunim takes us on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery: a quest to find the source of the walls by returning to find her parents’ childhood homes, confronting the pain of the past to finally heal herself, her parents, and her ancestors.
Flipping through photo albums, Colette asks her parents why they moved to the United States. She learns it wasn’t for a better life. “We were running away from something,” her mother replies. Through grainy VHS footage and candid, revealing interviews, the film paints an intimate portrait of a home where it felt, as her brother describes, there “was always a blanket of sadness.”
Colette’s parents hesitantly agree to return to the countries they’d left decades ago, and they begin an exhaustive search to find the homes that have a small possibility to still exist.
In a city in occupied Palestine where they are not welcome, the Ghunim family are guided by activists, guides and researchers to find Hosni' s ancestral home. In Mexico City, Iza is able to rediscover familiar places and paths that her 8-year-old self had to escape.
Colette's family unpacks the generational impact of both the Nakba in Palestine and an abusive, alcoholic father in Mexico; once they close the distance to home, Colette finally realizes what’s needed to finally remove the walls within herself and her family.
Traces of Home is an evocative meditation on the nature of belonging, family, and loss for children of displaced peoples seeking to heal their own cultural disconnect and intergenerational trauma.
As a documentary filmmaker and nonprofit co-founder, Colette Ghunim’s soul purpose is to use the power of film and storytelling for those oppressed around the world to be seen, to be heard, and to heal. Her first documentary, The People’s Girls (2016), received over 2 million views and won Best Short Documentary at the Arab Film Festival for its bold spotlight on street harassment in Egypt. Colette is also the co-founder of Mezcla Media Collective, a nonprofit organization aimed to cultivate a thriving landscape for over 700 women and non-binary filmmakers of color in Chicago. Her work has been highlighted on international outlets such as Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, Univision, and TEDx. Colette was selected as a 2023 Obama Foundation USA Leader, 2024 Sundance Institute x ISF Fellow, and was featured on Arab America’s “30 Under 30” list.
Premiere to be announced in Oct 2025
Writer, Editor, Producer - Sara Maamouri
Executive Producer - Keith Wilson
Producer - Dan Rybicky
Executive Producer - Dena Takruri
