Synopsis:
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.Read More »
Jocelyne Saab
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Jocelyne Saab & Jorg Stocklin – Le Liban dans la tourmente AKA Lebanon in a Whirlwind (1975)
1971-1980DocumentaryFranceJocelyne SaabJorg Stocklin -
Jocelyne Saab – Beyrouth, Ma Ville AKA Beirut, My City (1983)
1981-1990DocumentaryJocelyne SaabWarQuote:
Beirut, My City finds Saab and her collaborator, the playwright and director Roger Assaf, returning to the shell of her former home following Israel’s 1982 invasion, finding small glimmers of hope in the chaos of refugee camps and the rubble of decimated neighborhoods.
“I consider this to be my most important film, the one that is the closest to my heart. In 1982, my house was burning. That’s not nothing. It was a very old house. 150 years of history went up in flames and disappeared. All of that is suddenly destroyed. The family home, wiped off the map, gone from the city, having become a pile of ruins.”Read More » -
Jocelyne Saab – Dunia (2005)
2001-2010DramaEgyptJocelyne SaabQuote:
After studying literature at Cairo University, Dunia, 23 years old, wants to become a professional dancer. She attends audition for an oriental dance contest where she recites Arabian poetry without any body movement. She explains to the perplexed jury that a woman can’t move her body or evoke act of love when society ask women to hide their femininity. She is selected and meets Beshir, an intellectual and activist who will supervise her thesis on ecstasy in Sufi love poetry. Their attraction is mutual. This could be liberation for Dunia but the constraints on women in Egyptian society goes deeper than she suspects.Read More » -
Jocelyne Saab – War Children AKA Les Enfants de la Guerre (1976)
1971-1980DocumentaryJocelyn SaabLebanonPoliticsA few days after the Karantina massacre, in a predominantly Muslim slum in Beirut, Jocelyne Saab meets the surviving children, who are marked by the horrific visions of the combat they witnessed. After giving them pens to draw with and inviting them to play under the watchful eye of her camera, the director is faced with a bitter realization: they no longer know any other game than that of war, and it will soon become a profession for them as well.Read More »