Aliaa Remtilla's Story
How the seeds of StoryTiling were sown
Aliaa Remtilla as a young teen
As a child, the thing Aliaa Remtilla most frequently got in trouble for was reading too much. Nothing could have better prepared her to co-found StoryTiling, a company dedicated to capturing people's life stories.
From historical fictions to biographies, she explains, "the books I read helped me to recognise the value of people’s life stories".
Aliaa read her first autobiography in Grade 4: "My Life by Golda Meir," the story of the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
"It made such an impression on me that I made my Mom read it too," Aliaa remembers. "As a young girl, it offered me an example of a strong, successful female leader. And as a Muslim, it allowed me to experience the values and principles of Judaism."
"Learning from the life experiences of other people," she explains, “helped me to think through who I wanted to be myself and taught me to truly empathise with people I encounter.”
Over two decades, Aliaa realised that while she had learned about the lives of people memorialised in books, she didn't know nearly enough about her own family's stories.
"No one had written a memoir about my grandparents or great-grandparents. They were just regular people. But their story mattered to me. They’re part and parcel of who I am.”
Aliaa started by capturing the life story of her 90 year old grandmother. The documented story is now one of the Remtilla family’s most precious treasures - and it turned out to be the best birthday gift for her grandmother!
“Seeing how meaningful the story was for my entire extended family made me realise that knowing where we come from - and preserving our family stories before they’re lost forever - is a universal human need.”
With this realisation, the seeds of StoryTiling were sown.
StoryTiling scales Aliaa’s expertise as a professional anthropologist and filmmaker to enable everyone to capture their family’s stories.
We may not all read as much as Aliaa does, but with StoryTiling, we can all record and save the most meaningful memories of our loved ones.