Hassan Naamani

In 1975, the Lebanese wars started when Maroun Bagdadi ended his first feature film "Beirutya Beirut". Did the war give an identity to Lebanese cinema? Productions of documentaries, action movies, actor films, co-productions, and emigration. Since 1975, the war has remained a major subject for feature fiIms shot in Lebanon. This is a history of stories about war and cinema.

A visually striking meditation on loss and a perceptive political critique, this deeply personal work has two subjects: filmmaker Olga Nakkas' ailing mother and the chaotic country where Nakkas was raised. Both fell sick in 1975, the onset of incurable depression for one and a bloody civil war ushering in deep divisions for the other. In this sequel to LEBANON: BITS AND PIECES (1994), Nakkas ponders the plight of the country she clearly loves while honoring the mother dear to her.

Jocelyne Saab toured the city of Beirut devastated by Israeli bombings. She assesses the number of victims and the extent of the destruction.

1976 marks the beginning of Beirut’s calvary. With a child’s eyes the filmmaker follows for six months the daily destruction of the city’s walls. Every morning, between 6 and 10am she roams around Beirut while the militia from both sides rest from their night of fighting.

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.

A few days after a massacre in a shantytown near Beirut, the director finds the children who survived. She approaches them by offering them crayons to draw. A link is created between them. They let her film their violent games: they repeat the scenes of horror they saw unfold before their eyes ...

Palestinian women, the often-forgotten victims of the Israeli-Palestinian war, are here given a voice by Jocelyne Saab. The film was commissioned by Antenne 2 (France), but it was censured while still in the editing stage and never shown. This print was specially made for this retrospective by the conservation centre at Cinemateca Portuguesa.