Encountering the real effects of destruction, the films in this Beirut-focused series complicate the relationship between fact and fiction, using poetry and other forms of intermediality to witness what emerges from ruins. Beirut, a city that has often been the site of sectarian, colonialist and imperialist violence, is a context which produces films that critically engage with images related to moments during, between, and after war and upheaval. At the center of this series is a retrospective of several early films by Jocelyne Saab, who uses documentary form to demonstrate the effects of violence in Lebanon and to challenge dominant western media perceptions and practices of filming and exhibiting war in Beirut. This series coincides with and honors the one year anniversary of the devastating Beirut Port explosion through the celebration of Lebanese filmmaking. The June program encompasses Palestine and the refugee camps and slums on the outskirts of Beirut.
Two short documentaries by Jocelyne Saab shot near the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War and a feature-length documentary by Mai Masri and Jean Chamoun shot toward the end of the war in 1988 will screen this June. Central to these films are the youth of Beirut as they live with and resist imperialist and sectarian forms of violence.
In this short film, originally commissioned for French television but never aired, Jocelyne Saab follows Palestinian women in Beirut in the 1970s, at the peak of the Palestinian revolutionary movement. Saab interviews women in refugee camps and at the university as well as during their fida’ee training, and the film offers an intimate look at the Palestinian resistance and its relationship to larger class struggles and feminist movements.
- Year1974
- Runtime10 minutes
- LanguageFrench
- CountryLebanon, Palestine
- Subtitle LanguageEnglish
- DirectorJocelyne Saab
- ProducerJocelyne Saab
- CinematographerHassan Naamani
- EditorPhilippe Gosselet
Encountering the real effects of destruction, the films in this Beirut-focused series complicate the relationship between fact and fiction, using poetry and other forms of intermediality to witness what emerges from ruins. Beirut, a city that has often been the site of sectarian, colonialist and imperialist violence, is a context which produces films that critically engage with images related to moments during, between, and after war and upheaval. At the center of this series is a retrospective of several early films by Jocelyne Saab, who uses documentary form to demonstrate the effects of violence in Lebanon and to challenge dominant western media perceptions and practices of filming and exhibiting war in Beirut. This series coincides with and honors the one year anniversary of the devastating Beirut Port explosion through the celebration of Lebanese filmmaking. The June program encompasses Palestine and the refugee camps and slums on the outskirts of Beirut.
Two short documentaries by Jocelyne Saab shot near the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War and a feature-length documentary by Mai Masri and Jean Chamoun shot toward the end of the war in 1988 will screen this June. Central to these films are the youth of Beirut as they live with and resist imperialist and sectarian forms of violence.
In this short film, originally commissioned for French television but never aired, Jocelyne Saab follows Palestinian women in Beirut in the 1970s, at the peak of the Palestinian revolutionary movement. Saab interviews women in refugee camps and at the university as well as during their fida’ee training, and the film offers an intimate look at the Palestinian resistance and its relationship to larger class struggles and feminist movements.
- Year1974
- Runtime10 minutes
- LanguageFrench
- CountryLebanon, Palestine
- Subtitle LanguageEnglish
- DirectorJocelyne Saab
- ProducerJocelyne Saab
- CinematographerHassan Naamani
- EditorPhilippe Gosselet