Letter From Beirut
Synopsis
A woman sits at a quiet beachside restaurant writing a letter. The breeze, the shoreline and the almost guestless restaurant give the impression of tranquility… But is that really the case? Can this tranquility also mean the opposite, that there is fear–that it’s not safe enough to have fun? Jocelyne Saab returns to Beirut, the tense hometown of her armed conflict, and takes us on a personal journey.
Schedule
1st Screening
6 November 2024, 19:00 GMT+7
Production Team
Jocelyne Saab
Jocelyne Saab (1948-2019) has spent her life telling stories in various forms, ranging from newsreels, photography, films, to video works. She was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, and moved to Paris, France as a student. In Paris in the 1970s, Jocelyne began making films for television. The civil war in Lebanon encouraged her to explore documentaries, with her first work being Palestinian Women (1973). Jocelyne embraced women’s subjective perspectives as the lens to observe the reality of war, the critique of capitalism, and the impact of violence in North Africa and Southwest Asia-regions that in colonialist discourse were called the “Middle East”. She is also interested in exposing Asian films to a wider audience in Lebanon by being a member of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) and organizing the Cultural Resistance International Film Festival of Lebanon (2013).
