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DIARIES FROM LEBANON

Myriam El Hajj

Lebanon, France, Qatar

Director's Biography

Myriam El Hajj is a Lebanese filmmaker whose first feature-length documentary, A Time to Rest (2015), had its premiere at Visions du Réel and went on to screen at several international festivals and win multiple awards. Her second documentary, Diaries from Lebanon (2024), premiered in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival. El Hajj teaches cinema at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts and is a member of several film commissions, including the CNC. She is a founding member of Rawiyat-Sisters in Film, a collective of women filmmakers from the Arab world and its diaspora.

2024
110
Arabic, English, French
Documentary
Screenings :
Tues 03 / 21:00 / Cinéma le Colisée
Tues 03 / 21:00 / Cinéma le Colisée

In the presence of the film crew

In 2018, Joumana, a fiery feminist writer, poet, and activist, runs for election, defying the political system that has suffocated Lebanon for forty years. She is elected, then fraudulently ousted the next day. Her supporters are furious. In 2019, rage turns into a revolution. The streets swell with thousands of voices. Among them is Perla Joe, a fearless woman who becomes a symbol of this uprising. Her unyielding voice echoes the frustration of youth struggling to find their place, for whom the past looms darkly over their aspirations for progress and change. Georges is a guardian of that mysterious, violent past. A veteran of the Lebanese Civil War, during which he lost a leg, he clings to delusions of “glory.” In diary form, the director narrates four years of a nation in turmoil, battling to break free from its own chains. As the country is shaken by disruption, personal quests for meaning and survival unfold. How can we continue to dream when the world around us is collapsing?

Director Myriam El Hajj

Producer Myriam Sassine, Carine Ruszniewski

Screenwriter Myriam El Hajj

Cinematographer Jihad Saade, Myriam El Hajj, Mohamed Siam

Editor Anita Perez, Stéphanie Sicard

Sound Thomas Robert, Jean-Guy Véran, Elia Haddad

Music Marc Codsi

Color Color

Supported by

Joumana Haddad, Georges Moufarej, Perla Joe Maalouli

Production Company Abbout Productions, GoGoGo Films

International Sales Company MAD World

Distributor MAD Distribution

Pays

Lebanon, France, Qatar

année

2024

durée

110

langue

Arabic, English, French