In the Land That Is Like You is a progress on the tracks of my lost past, with the contact of my mother, my grandmother and the man who I love, in a country which escapes from me and retains me, Lebanon.
A nine-year-old Syrian refugee girl contemplates her increasingly bleak future after being forced to drop out of school in the midst of Lebanon’s unprecedented economic collapse and battle with Covid-19.
Renowned vocalist Sarah Brightman performs more than 20 songs before a packed house at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Arena in this concert film from Angel Records. The set list includes such tunes as "Who Wants to Live Forever," "Stranger in Paradise," "What a Wonderful World," "A Whiter Shade of Pale," and "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again."
In July 1982, the Israeli army besieged Beirut. Four days earlier, Jocelyne Saab sees her house burn and 150 years of family existence go up in smoke. She then takes refuge in questioning: when did this all begin? How did the Beirut people live the siege? Each place will then become a story and each name a memory.
Migrant families experience violence, but they also keep beautiful memories when they arrive in new lands. Fantastic and intimate stories, recalled from childhood, travel across time and space, magically intermingling with the help of the four elements and breaking the boundaries of cinema.
Kamal Jumblatt, the Master of Moukhtara Castle, recounts the major events of his life until his assassination on March 16, 1977. The film takes us on a global journey from Lebanon to India, in the footsteps of Kamal Jumblatt, the founder of the PSP (Progressive Socialist Party), the leader, the rebel, the reformer, the thinker, the poet, the Yogi … Kamal Jumblatt (1917-1977) becomes the last witness... of his own life.
"When this last war broke out, I was faraway in Paris. I had but one idea: to return to Beirut as quickly as possible and to begin shooting a film, for historical moments were taking place. This film became indispensible: to film so that history would cease repeating itself and to build up a picture library for future generations. I never understood why so few films were made during the Lebanese Civil War. Apart from the odd film, nothing remains from that time. The war surely merited more attention." (Waël Noureddine)
Jocelyne Saab toured the city of Beirut devastated by Israeli bombings. She assesses the number of victims and the extent of the destruction.
In 2022, when the economic crisis in her native country was at its peak, she decided to visit her family there. She turned her short trip into a collage-like diary in which she reflects on her relationship with her homeland, which is in a state of protracted decay. The film is composed of spontaneous snapshots capturing the author's stay, interspersed with inserted captions serving as personal, often poetically formulated comments and observations. As a result, the film does not hide its strongly subjective perspective, but at the same time builds on it to make an important statement that shows the transformation of Lebanese society in everyday details such as the appearance of the city itself or in the intimate sphere of the author's family life.
An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
Sayedat Al-Kasr traces the history of the Joumblatt family of Mount Lebanon from the 17th century to the present, focusing on early 20th century leader and politician Nazira Joumblatt. Born in 1889, Nazira ascended the throne of the Moukhtara palace in 1923, following the assassination of her husband Fouad and the resignation of her brother Aly Joumblatt. She presided over the region as Lady of the Palace for twenty-five years while raising her son Kamal, preparing him to take his place in a long line of Jumblatt leaders. Famous for her wisdom and strong personality, Nazira boldly entered the Lebanese political scene at a time when this field was entirely dominated by men. Unwavering, she contributed to maintaining peace and stability in Lebanon for many years, earning the respect of men and women, whether Druze or Maronites.
Divas: d’Oum Kalthoum à Dalida
Lebanon's brief flirtation with space travel in the 1960s becomes a poignant metaphor for the Arab world's utopian dreams in this riveting documentary.
Jean-Claude walks his dog in a neighborhood forever stuck in reconstruction. On his trip, he wonders about life, mortality, and 'what if' scenarios while remembering fragments from the direct impact of the second that almost cost him his life on August 4. At the moment of the explosion, the end of the world, bodies, buildings, roads, and cities may shatter. Perhaps the universe itself breaks apart. But the most severe fragmenting remains that of memory. A picture here and a sound there are vaguely reconstituted. Can a future be built from such a memory? Can it rebuild what was lost? Is it time to leave?
Intimate discussion with the inhabitants of Kfarbaal, a village tucked in the mountains above Byblos. We hear them share their experiences, deceptions and dreams.
A few months after the incident of April 13, 1975, during which Palestinian civilians were machine-gunned by Phalangist militiamen, the toll is most tragic: six thousand dead, twenty thousand wounded, incessant kidnappings, a semi-destroyed capital. This film traces the origins of the Lebanese conflict, the perception of a society that goes to war while singing. A unique document on the Lebanese civil war. Beyond the religious war, the painting of a social and political reality that has not changed much, more than four decades later.
An intimate exploration of life in Bzebdine, a small rural village in Mount Lebanon.
‘Objects of War’ is a series of testimonials on the Lebanese war. Each person chooses an object, ordinary or unusual, which serves as a starting point for his / her story. These testimonials while helping to create a collective memory, also show the impossibility of telling a single History of this war. Only fragments of this History are recounted here, held as truth by those expressing them. In ‘Objects of War’, the aim is not to reveal a truth but rather to gather and confront many diverse versions and discourses on the subject. ‘Objects of War’ started in 1999 assembling the testimonials of eleven persons. It was first shown in 2000 . It continued in 2003 with ‘Objects of War n°2’, recording seven additional testimonials. This time however, and since then, the recorded material is left unedited, shown in its integrity. The work of collecting and assembling these stories continued with ‘Objects of War n°3 & n°4’ in 2006 and ‘n°5 & 6’ in 2014.
In early September 2011, Leah decided to go to Lebanon to film her grandmother. Two weeks after the end of filming, her grandmother died of metastatic lung cancer. It would take her 12 years to regain the courage to review their last conversations. Through memories and poems she draws the portrait of her grandmother paying homage to her colorful spirit that made her unique.
Directors Karim Eid-Sabbagh and Paul Cochrane investigate the political economy of water in Lebanon after the country's trash crisis began in 2015.