North American Premiere
The Najar family lives on the outer edge of Amman, Jordan, where luxury villas are closing in on the grazing space they have long called home. In Concrete Land, Jordan-born Palestinian filmmaker Asmahan Bkerat tells the story of one of Jordan’s last Afro-Palestinian-Bedouin families as development presses closer. At the centre of this three-generation family is 10-year-old Eman, growing up among meals, songs, arguments, labour, and the family’s care for Badrya, their beloved sheep.
Bkerat spent eight years filming, and she visited the family almost every day, documenting their daily lives in the face of erasure. There are no interviews to tell us what to think; the family’s presence is felt through their daily habits, and the film’s power comes from refusing to turn their displacement into spectacle. Premiering at Locarno Critics’ Week, Concrete Land brings urban encroachment down to one home, where Eman and her family fight to remain familiar to themselves as the world around them changes shape.
Content Considerations: Animal Death (not animal cruelty), racism, classism, school bullying of Eman (one of the main subjects of the doc), intergenerational displacement, forced migration
Oct 3 & 4: Filmmaker Q&A
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Abedel Wahad Al- Najjar, Awad Al Najjar, Eman Al-Najjar, Samira A-Muray, Hakima Obeid, Aminah Al-Najjar
Jordan/Palestine
2026
In Arabic with English subtitles
Odd Slice Films
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Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Jane Mote
Producer
Ban Maraqa, Asmahan Bkerat
Screenwriter
Ban Maraqa
Cinematography
Asmahan Bkerat
Editor
Ban Maraqa
Asmahan Bkerat
Asmahan Bkerat is a Palestinian-Jordanian documentary filmmaker who started her career as a photographer and social justice advocate. Her first short documentary Badrya (2017) won the Jury Prize for Best MiniDoc at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, and she recently directed and produced her first feature-length documentary, Concrete Land (2026). She is currently producing the feature documentaries Harvest Moon and If These Stones Could Talk, alongside a few other short documentary films.
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