Beirut Oh Beirut, Maroun Bagdadi's first feature, completed and screened on the eve of Lebanon’s Civil War is widely considered to have been prescient about the oncoming conflict. Framed within the drama of an impossible love story, the film casts several characters, a Muslim lawyer, a young Christian woman and a worker from the southern countryside, whose lives intertwine. Carefully reconstituting the drama of a country verging on the precipice of turmoil, the film also narrates the launch of the armed resistance in south Lebanon, set against the background of the first Israeli military assault on the country in 1968, and the death of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser in 1970.

1975 | 1h 50min
Arabic with English and French subtitles

Partners: Nadi lekol Nas