Hidden story of Libya’s Jews brought to London in powerful documentary premiere

The story of Libya’s long-forgotten Jewish community was brought to London audiences this week as a new documentary exploring persecution, survival and exile received its UK premiere.

Le Cose Non Dette (Things left Unsaid), directed by Italian-Libyan filmmaker Hamos Guetta, was screened at JW3 on Tuesday in an event organised by Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.

Founded in 2005, Harif works to preserve the history and heritage of Jewish communities from across the Middle East and North Africa, campaigns for recognition of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and raises awareness of communities that have largely disappeared from the region.

The 81-minute film follows the experiences of Libyan Jews under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi through the testimony of survivors and their families, focusing on engineer Giulio Hassan and his wife Jasmine, whose lives were torn apart by imprisonment, persecution and eventual exile.

Speaking after the screening, Guetta explained that his own childhood memories of Libya inspired a lifelong search to understand the community’s history.

Reflecting on leaving Libya as a child and rebuilding life in Italy, he said: “We want to build our roots again.”

He told the audience that incomplete memories of his early years had driven him to document the stories of fellow Libyan Jews before they disappeared.

“One interview with Giulio, I did casually,” he said. “I met him in Rome… I began the point that there is a story, and I built it.”

Guetta said the film aimed not only to document individual experiences but also to help audiences understand the wider history of a community that lived in Libya for more than 2,000 years.

“If you want to know the community, the story of the people and the sophisticated mentality, you have to hear also where all those come from.”

The filmmaker also reflected on Britain’s place in Libyan Jewish history, describing 5 November as a date that carried both hope and tragedy.

He noted that the British victory at El Alamein in 1942 prevented plans to deport Libya’s Jews to Nazi extermination camps, but also criticised the British administration’s handling of the anti-Jewish pogrom in Tripoli on 5 November 1945.

Asked whether the documentary could eventually become a feature film, Guetta said the true story itself remained the most important part of the project.

Speaking about relations between Jews and Arabs today, he urged people not to lose sight of those seeking peaceful lives despite ongoing conflict.

“We try to be normal,” he said. “People want to live, they want to have a family and want to have a child.”

Judy Saphra, who organised the screening on behalf of Harif, said: “As Jews from Arab countries, we are doing our best to ensure our voices are heard by telling our story and sharing what we went through.”