Fadi Abou Khalil

In 1975, the long slog of civil war has recently begun in Beirut. A high school student named Tarek is thrilled by all the chaos and upheaval because he no longer needs to go to school. Plus, he finds negotiations between West and East Beirut interesting. Tarek is accompanied by his buddy Omar as the two shoot Super 8 films of the tumult around them. The jovial mood takes a tragic turn when Tarek's parents start fighting over whether or not to flee Beirut.

Patrick Perrault, a photo-journalist covering the war in Beirut in the late 1980s, is himself caught up in the hostilities when one day he is picked up and bundled into a car at gun-point. Blind-folded, he is taken to an unknown location where he discovers that he is being taken hostage by Lebanese guerrillas.