Traces of Home, the powerful and timely debut feature by director Colette Ghunim, produced by Sara Maamouri, Dan Rybicky, and Capella Fahoome, was announced as the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Competition at the 16th edition of DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, held November 12–30.
“The jury was moved by the film’s vulnerability,” wrote the panel, comprised of Patricia E. Gillespie (The Fire That Took Her, The Secrets We Bury), Hugo Perez (Omara), and Mars Verrone (UNION). “Through an intimate family lens, it offers a powerful portrayal of parenthood and identity. With tenderness and courage, the filmmaker uses the camera as a tool for reconciliation that bridges generations and cultures. In a time of division, Traces of Home stands out for its compassion and timely representation of Mexican and Palestinian experiences united by love and resilience.”
Traces of Home has been acquired for U.S. distribution by Watermelon Pictures and has boarded actors John Leguizamo and Melissa Barrera as Executive Producers.
Filmed over five years, Traces of Home follows Ghunim on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery as she seeks to reunite her parents with the homes they were forced to leave as children—her mother, who fled domestic violence in Mexico, and her father, who was forcibly removed from his ancestral home in Palestine. Blending vérité filmmaking, animation, and archival materials, the documentary is both a meditation on memory and an unflinching exploration of what it means to find our way back home—to ourselves.
Growing up in suburban Schaumburg, Illinois, Ghunim and her brother Ramsey had a quintessential American childhood, filled with birthday parties, family trips, and school plays. Yet beneath the surface of their parents' pursuit of safety and assimilation lay unspoken trauma from their distinct but parallel stories of displacement. As Colette turns her camera inward, Traces of Home unfolds into an emotional excavation of how exile and resilience ripple through generations of immigrant families.
Through grainy VHS home movies, candid interviews, and tender vérité moments, Ghunim captures her parents' hesitant decisions to return to the places they left behind decades ago. As the family embarks on dual journeys—set against the backdrop of ongoing erasure in Palestine and the enduring struggles of migration from Mexico—Traces of Home becomes an evocative meditation on how memory functions as both wound and guide.
Ghunim began the project in 2016 in response to the rising vilification of Arab and Latinx communities in the U.S. under discriminatory immigration policies. By interweaving her parents' stories of forced migration with her own search for belonging, she bridges two distinct histories of resistance, reminding audiences that the struggle for dignity and home is shared across borders.
Additionally, the Argentine film Museum of the Night, directed by Fermín Eloy Acosta and produced by Ramiro Pavón, Pablo Ingercher, and Acosta, received a Special Mention in the Metropolis Competition. Fascinated by the ghostly figure of the multifaceted artist Leandro Katz (81), director Acosta discovers that Katz participated in an irreverent theater group linked to the New York underground of the 1960s called Teatro del Ridículo. In a lengthy interview in which the artist chooses not to appear on camera, Acosta reconstructs Katz’s intermittent portrait through photography, video, film, and depictions of New York and Buenos Aires in the present. Ultimately, the film reflects on sexuality, death, photography, and cinema.
“The jury admired this film’s striking sense of style and consistency. It sets its own rules and follows them with confidence, transporting viewers into a world of art, memory, and self-expression. Through its rich use of archival footage and cinematic tools, the film evokes nostalgia while celebrating the fearless creativity of a bygone era. This is a fascinating, deeply felt journey through the intersections of art and identity.”
