The Green Line
★ 8.3 · 1998 · 33m · Documentary
Bahij Hojeij’s documentary studies the infamous Green Line between east and west Beirut during the civil war.
More Like This
A Letter from Beirut
1978 · ★ 6.8
Letter from Beirut documents the filmmaker's return to Beirut during one of the lulls, three years after the outbreak of the civil war, animated by the urge to return. She is confronted by the physical, emotional and psychological ravages of the war, terrified and sorrowful, she cannot find her place in the city. In that quest, she communicates with everyday people, friends, neighbors, people riding the bus across the city's eastern and western flanks. To pace her journeying and dramatic unraveling of the film, Saab borrows the guise of a letter read in a voice-over, written by world-renowned poet Etel Adnan. A rare document from the civil war, Letter from Beirut lays bare and spontaneously how people make sense of their everyday in the midst of chaos, violence, terror and sorrow.
More info →
Lebanese, Hostages of Their City
1982 · ★ 10
Jocelyne Saab toured the city of Beirut devastated by Israeli bombings. She assesses the number of victims and the extent of the destruction.
More info →
Beirut City Guide
2007 · ★ 7
Beirut, Lebanon's capital has a long history of political and social unrest that still makes headlines today. Globe Trekker's Beirut City Guide captures the city in more optimistic days, two weeks before the latest outbreak of hostilities in Lebanon between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in July 2006. Globe Trekker Megan McCormick explores the neighborhoods of Basta, Solidere, Gemayze and the Hezbollah District and finds a city in the midst of regeneration. She gets a glimpse at Beirut's future when meeting up with a group of young Arabic hip hop artists, who are eager to live in peace and put the country's political troubles in the past.
More info →
Kidnapped
1998
“Al Makhtufun” won the 1998 Best Short Documentary Film Award at the Mediterranean Film Festival for highlighting the issue of abducted Lebanese. The film raises two major issues: The abductee’s physical absence and his spiritual presence among his family members, and the parents silently wishing his return. The documentary looks at documents kept by Wadad, a mother who decides to step outside her comfort zone and share her papers and forms when other parents would not.
More info →
Waltz with Bashir
2008 · ★ 7.7
An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
More info →It's All in Lebanon
2012 · ★ 5.2
Wissam Charaf traces the recent history and identity of Lebanon through its political campaigns, PR imagery and pop videos.
More info →
Minerva
2021
Severely battered from the Beirut Port Explosion on August 4th, Minerva passed away eight days later. Her son Joseph, while still grieving for his loss, sunk into a long and absurd bureaucratic path through the inept system that disowned his mother as a victim of the blast. Minerva is gone. The explosion has snatched her soul, and the city walls have not yet recognized her as a martyr. There is no poster of her smiling face among those of the victims. Their faces are memories that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Perhaps her son, devastated by her passing, seeks to etch her image into the city's memory. Perhaps he is seeking some confession to the crime. This is a place that casts out its children, whether dead or alive.
More info →
We Loved Each Other So Much
2003 · ★ 8.3
Inhabitants of Beirut talk about their love for the singer Fairuz.
More info →
The Last Baron
2021 · ★ 10
The meaty saga of Burger Baron, a rogue fast-food chain with mysterious origins and a cult following, run by a loose network of fiercely independent Arab Canadian immigrants.
More info →
Beirut, Never Again
1976 · ★ 6.8
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.
More info →
Eldorado
2018 · ★ 5.8
Drawing inspiration from his personal encounter with the Italian refugee child Giovanna during World War II, Markus Imhoof tells how refugees and migrants are treated today: on the Mediterranean Sea, in Lebanon, in Italy, in Germany and in Switzerland.
More info →
War Generation - Beirut
1986
War Generation - Beirut explores the lives, dreams and fears of three generations of young people living in the heart of the civil war in Lebanon. This seminal work from Jean Chamoun and Mai Masri remains one of the most powerful anti-war documents of the period.
More info →