Traces of Home With Colette Ghunim

Filmmaker Colette Ghunim discusses her award-winning documentary “Traces of Home.” The film follows Colette and her parents as they return to Mexico and Palestine — the homelands they were forced to leave — to confront intergenerational trauma, displacement, and explore her cultural identity.

Colette shares the nine-year journey of creating this deeply personal documentary, from convincing her hesitant parents to participate to winning the Grand Jury Prize for Best U.S. Documentary at the 2025 Documentary NYC Festival. She opens up about how the filmmaking process became an unexpected tool for healing family wounds, bridging the gap between generations, and understanding the lasting impact of colonization and migration.

The conversation explores the parallels between Mexican and Palestinian diasporic experiences, the challenges of being a woman of color in documentary filmmaking, and how art can serve as medicine for collective trauma.

This episode of The Latino Newsletter Podcast was produced by Joaquín Cotler, Juan Diego Ramirez, and Michelle Zacarias. It was edited by Julio Ricardo Varela. Music by Cast of Characters via SoundStripe.

Season 2 of the Latino Newsletter Podcast was made possible by individual donations and by the Latino Media Consortium.

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect those held by The Latino Newsletter or its staff.