There is only one river, there is only one sea
And it flows through you, and it flows through me
- from the folk song River of Jordan

It’s All One River is a film which features Palestinian oud player Reem Anbar performing an improvised version of her composition Nazih (Displacement), on the banks of the River Mersey in Manchester.

Composed recently to highlight the plight of her fellow Palestinians in the besieged territory of Gaza, bombarded and uprooted by Israel’s ongoing genocidal war and military occupation, Anbar’s highly evocative performance of Nazih agitates a symbiosis between the flow of water and the forced displacement of people, powerfully invoking the direct and personal experience of diaspora, exile and dispossession. Syncopated with sounds of the traditional oud and live field recordings, the film presents human and non-human rhythms as sensory resistance, drawing upon the river’s inherent connectivity to natural and cultural history, collective memory and routes of global migration.

It’s All One River is titled from a lyric by Bill Callahan, from his track Cowboy, which quotes from the folk song River of Jordan. The filming location was a recently-flooded clearing of Himalayan Balsam, a resilient non-native plant species that thrives along riverbanks due to the dispersal of seeds by the water’s powerful, endless cycle of deluge, destruction and renewal.

A film by Nick Jordan & Fiona Brehony
Music: Nazih (Displacement), written & performed by Reem Anbar
Available on the album Rihla #2 by Gazelleband
Filming Assistant: Nuala Shaar

Please donate to the Let Palestine Sing fundraiser to support the Anbar family in Gaza.

Stegi Radio Gaza Special: Reem Anbar interviewed by Christina Hazboun