Letter from Beirut by Jocelyne Saab

This highly personal and original film is an attempt by the filmmaker to come to terms with her experience of war and current events in Lebanon. Saab is like a character in her own story, returning to a country and a city that she no longer recognises. The film works through subtle transitions between fiction and documentary, and a series of letters with a text written by Etel Adnan, whose novel 'Sitt Marie Rose', published one year earlier in 1977, Saab considered to be the best novel about the Lebanese conflict. While travelling around Beirut and to South Lebanon, the filmmaker muses about the country, its politics, censorship, listening to people who speak openly about their lives and what they hope for the future. The film was described as a panorama of Lebanese society and its problems, revisiting the history of Lebanon and the wages of occupation, while showing people’s everyday life during a time of conflict.

This screening is part of the Jocelyne Saab Month at Dar El-Nimer, organised in collaboration with MACAM and curated by Mathilde Rouxel.

1978 | 52min
Language: English without Subtitles.