“Native Sons: Palestinians in Exile” documentary highlights the Palestinian Diaspora experience

This documentary explores how Palestinians became refugees in 1948, their experiences since that time, and their hopes for the future. It provides a conduit for rarely heard voices illuminating the malignant roots of the ongoing Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

Martin Sheen narrates this examination of the lives of three Palestinian families who fled their homes in 1948 and have lived as refugees in Lebanon ever since.

Tom Hayes, originally from Vermont, is a documentary filmmaker and Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of Film at Ohio University. He attended film school at Ohio University back when hippies roamed the Earth, then embarked on a career as a freelance media ninja.

After working freelance for twenty-five years he was recruited to teach at OU. Along the way he pursued a documentary passion. His first long form documentary was Refugee Road which followed a Cambodian family from a refugee camp on the Cambodia border through their first year of resettlement in the United States. That project sensitized him to the refugee experience and shortly after it was completed, he stumbled onto information about the Palestinian refugees.

In 1983 he started filming Native Sons: Palestinians In Exile about three refugee families in the Lebanon camps. That was followed by People and The Land, shot in occupied Palestine, and Two Blue Lines which concentrates on Israeli views of the conflict. Tom has been active in the Palestine solidarity movement since that first touch back in the 1980’s.

He currently serves as faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine at OU and is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. He has been married for 45 years and has two grown daughters.

Watch the full documentary

By Topic

Tagged with: Martin Sheen • Native Sons: Palestinians in Exile (documentary) • Palestinian Refugees • Tom Hayes

Explore the site in BY TOPIC, A-Z.