Joachim Michaux

November 1989: in Brussels, Victor is looking for Elina, his summer love who mysteriously vanished. He meets Damian, an enlightened English journalist, and Rosie, a punkish Dutch barmaid. Together, they dive into the night, driven by the New Beat fever.

My entrance into Lebanon was through my encounter with Yasmeen Baz, a young Lebanese producer of electronic music, and with her father Patrick. It is through their inner voices that I try to paint a sensitive and subjective portrait of contemporary Lebanon. I also witnessed the gradual emergence of a third character, the city of Beirut, which is constantly being destroyed and rebuilt, and which carries within itself the heritage of their past. Beyond a confrontation between inner truth and objective reality, this film is a reflection on violence and interrogates the need to see and produce images of destruction, thereby echoing the war photojournalism of Patrick Baz.

Emilienne could have been my grandmother if she hadn’t had a taste for travelling. In her home village in the heart of the Jura Mountains, she remembers the years she spent in New York. I discover scraps of her unsuspected life there in the super8 films that she has entrusted to me. Yet something else captures my attention…