Myriam Sassine

Members of a family quit the polluted, rubbish-strewn city of Beirut for an idyllic mountain home. However, their dreams of a utopian existence are shattered by the construction of a landfill on the boundary of their land.

Explores Kim Novak's life, highlighting her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, and her journey from stardom to a reclusive life as an artist in Oregon, using rare archival footage and Novak's own reflections.

After climbing Broad Peak mountain, Maciej Berbeka learns his journey to the summit is incomplete. 25 years later, he sets out to finish what he started.

On August 4th, 2020, the catastrophic explosion at the port of Beirut leaves a large part of the Lebanese capital in ruins. In the midst of the chaos, a troubled film crew face an overwhelming decision: to continue the production of their movie or abandon it? As they face the aftermath of the catastrophe, they are torn between their firm belief in the transformative power of cinema and a deep sense of cynicism about its ability to effect change in a nation plagued by economic turmoil and societal collapse. Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano chronicles their struggles and highlights the crew's resilience as they strive to find meaning and purpose in their work amidst the devastation.

Nanou's first true love story comes to an abrupt end. Rajwa treads carefully into a monogamous relationship. From 2008 to 2013, I accompanied them through their stories of passion and anguish, carrying with them their determination to arrive at the heart of things: to enter the hidden crevices of love, to uncover truth, all for the ever-elusive goal of understanding the essence of their own complex personalities. I entered their world to find answers to my own questions, to use their lives as my lens into discovering new forms of love. I stand at the intersection of friendship, love and seduction, unable to express the extent of my fascination for these women.

Riad, a middle-aged man, holds a firearm shop in a neighbourhood of Beirut. When he meets up with his friends or goes hunting with them, it is often with the aim of evoking together their memories of the civil war fought in the Christian militia. They live in nostalgia for the war that impassioned their youth. Director Myriam El Hajj builds solid architectural images that interrogate — and, perhaps, over time even manage to articulate — the intimate origins of violence that never seems to depart and a past that doesn't want to let go of the present.

Panoptic explores Lebanon's schizophrenia. Depicting a nation thriving for modernity while ignoring the vices preventing it from achieving its goal, director Rana Eid examines this paradox through sound, iconic monuments and secret hideouts.

On the eve of an invasion in 1982 Lebanon, an 11-year-old boy at a mountain school is determined to express his feelings to a classmate. As tension builds across the country, the day takes an unexpected turn, reflecting the fragile line between innocence and conflict. Through a child's eyes, the film explores the impact of war, the power of love, and the resilience of the human spirit.

The Sabra and Shatila quarters are part of the Lebanese capital Beirut, which was rocked by a violent explosion in 2020, plunging Lebanon into the worst economic crisis in its history. In the poor districts, once provisionally built for Palestinian refugees, the residents live at a subsistence level without papers, without civil rights, without prospects. The documentary weaves the stories of the three families Kujeyje, Daher, Abeed and that of the young father Aboodi Ziani into a searing portrait of life in a city on the brink. The filmmakers accompanied their protagonists over a four-year period between 2018 and 2022 and show how the poorest of the poor firsthand felt the consequences of the gigantic port explosion, Lebanon's historic economic crisis, the corona pandemic and the ever-growing refugee quota. But unmistakable qualities like resilience and hope allow them to survive.

We follow the journey of former soldier Nassif, who fled the war in Iraq by hiding in dark cinemas. During this time, he used to watch his favorite film, “Papillon” (1973), starring Steve McQueen. Nowadays, he is looking for this film among the Iraqi cinemas’ ruins. The search for this lost film copy in the old and obsolete cinemas becomes the sole purpose of Nassif and his primary motivation to leave his house. “Take me to the Cinema” allows us to discover Baghdad through Nassif’s eyes as he takes us to streets that contrast with his silent and quiet world. A lot has changed in today’s Iraq. The street where cinema theaters were is now a market that sells military uniforms. It is crowded with young men, fitting military shirts and shoes. The quest for “Papillon” becomes the quest of character, who does not want to acknowledge the transformations of his city, and who wants to cling on to its luminous past through the light of cinema and his inner world.

The octopus believes that the hand in front of it is a prey, but it doesn't know that behind every hand, there is an arm...

A Certain Nasser is the compelling journey of ninety years old Lebanese filmmaker, Georges Nasser, an idealist who couldn't adapt to his country's failing system but whose eyes still light up at the mention of his greatest love, Cinema.

When hungover Bassem wakes up by the lake shore among dead fish, his sister Youmna, whom he hasn't seen for 12 years, is there with a coffin.

Desperate to escape Lebanon and settle in Europe, Lillo buys himself a Syrian passport and is ready to appropriate the Syrian identity to obtain asylum. However, what he might not be ready for yet, is everything that comes along with being a Syrian refugee today.

Lebanon, July 2006. War is raging between Hezbollah and Israel. During a 24h ceasefire, Marwan heads out in search of his father who refused to leave his Southern village. As the ceasefire is quickly broken, Marwan finds himself under the rain of bombs and takes shelter in a house with a group of elders. Suddenly, a group of Israeli soldiers enter the first floor. Trapped in the house and hostages of their own fears, the next three days will see the situation spiral out of control.

Amal is 14 years old when she ends up on Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, after the death of her boyfriend in the Port Said Stadium riot. During the protests, she is beaten by police and dragged across the square by her hair. This coming-of-age film follows her over the years after the revolution. As the film cuts between the unfolding current events and Amal’s rapidly changing life and appearance, we see her searching for her own identity in a country in transition. Amal is fiery and fearless, sinking her teeth into the protests and constantly lecturing her mother, who works as a judge. A girl among men, she also has to fight for respect and the right to take part, both in the street and in the rest of her life. In Egypt, even for a young woman like Amal—her name means "hope"—the choices open to her for her future are limited.

When her father becomes suddenly paralyzed, the filmmaker spends four years in between hospitals finding shelter behind her camera away from a family tragedy. Rehabilitation centers, cemeteries, love making, VR experiments, fervent prayers and voice notes are the record of a filmmaker’s journey trying to amend the impossible: finding absolution for a broken family by making her father walk again.

In an apartment building in Beirut, on the last day of the year, seven characters start their day by visiting their psychologist as part of the weekly ritual. On that couch in their psychologist's office, they face themselves and their loved ones in trying to define what is most important to them. Each of them, from the patients to the residents of the building, has a different story to share, inner secrets and hidden wishes. All keep to themselves, except for the porter Abou Karim, who extends his presence and allows himself to interfere in the lives of others and in their destinies.

Lebanon, 2018. War, politics or revolution: these are the choices faced by Georges, Joumana and Perla Joe. Three destinies and a shared desire to rebuild a troubled country. How is it possible to continue to dream when everything around is falling apart?

Beirut, at night. Said begins his first shift as a security guard. His orders are clear: watch a bridge. However, in the heart of “the city that never dies”, the exercise is going to be more complicated than it seems.