The story is deeply personal, but its core is universal. After a month-long return to my home country, Algeria, I realized the time had come to tell the story I have been carrying for so long.

El Ghorba comes from my own experience of navigating place, distance, and what it means to be a Black Arab woman. It looks at how identity is shaped not just by where you are, but by what you carry with you: family, memory, and the feeling of being between worlds.

As conversations around third culture kids and belonging continue to evolve, this film offers a grounded and honest perspective, one that is specific in its cultural lens, but widely relatable in its exploration of what it means to be Afro-Arab, how families shape us, and the challenge of creating a sense of home across different places.