'Face à la mer': Beirut blues

When 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate blew up in August 2020, it turned the Lebanese capital Beirut into a ghost town. Back then, Ely Dagher was already working on this melancholic, slow art-house film.

In veiled terms, he tells us that Beirut was a ghost town even before the explosion at the port. Lifeless, crushed by the political and economic crisis, the hope for a better future lost. After barely two years, a downcast young woman trades Paris for Beirut and goes back home. But the city is alien to her. Waves of sorrow flood her.

FACE À LA MER
LB, dir.: Ely Dagher, act.: Manal Issa, Fadi Abi Samra, Roger Azar