Nicole Kamato

Marie wakes up one morning in Beirut in a panic, convinced that she has lost her daughter’s wedding photograph. A photograph, however, that never existed… Ten years ago, her daughter’s marriage ceremony had to be cut short on account of a bombing raid. There was no time for a wedding photograph. Now, with the aid of a photographer and a chicken, Hoda and her husband decide to reconstruct the wedding ceremony once more, so that Hoda’s mother will at last have the photograph she deserves…

Therese, the mayor's wife in a Lebanese village, joyfully prepares for an overnight visit of her daughter's suitor and his parents. She excitedly shares the happy news of the engagement with pictures of her beloved brother who was killed by a Syrian bomb 20 years ago and is still bizarrely present in every corner of her house. Only when the long-awaited guests are at her doorstep, she discovers they are Syrian; this engagement will only happen over Therese's dead body!

Beirut Hold’em depicts the life of Ziko, a 40-year old ex-con and petty gambler, and his three boyhood friends, in a seedy, lower-middle class district of Beirut. They’re fighting their way into a country on the edge of war and bankruptcy, where instability makes everyday life feel like Russian roulette, and sheer existence is yet another form of gambling.