Day 8 of Ayam Beirut Al Cinema’iya will start at 11AM, with the first Master Class with Ghassan Salhab and Tariq Teguia at IESAV-USJ (registration period over!).
Screenings start at 6PM in Metropolis Empire Sofil, Achrafieh with Port of Memory by Kamal Aljaafari, Son of Babylon by Mohamed Al-Daradji and Inland by Tariq Teguia.
- Port of Memory In what is left of the city of Jaffa, a man about to lose his house contemplates his fate. Meanwhile, two women remain tied to their homes. One finds comfort feeding her old mother, until her house is taken over by an Israeli film crew. The other immerses herself in dreams of love whilst making wedding decorations. In a nearby café, an old captain sits motionless the whole day, while a man moves restless like a fish in an aquarium. For these Palestinians, this is a way of life, holding onto hope through their own rituals.
screening at 6PM
Son of Babylon Northern Iraq, 2003. Two weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ahmed, a 12-year-old boy begrudgingly follows in the shadow of his grandmother. Upon hearing news that prisoners of war have been found alive in the South, she is determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed’s father, who never returned from the Gulf war 1991. From the mountains of north to the sands of Babylon in the south, they hitch rides from strangers and cross paths with fellow pilgrims, on all too similar journeys.
screening at 7PM, in the presence of the director Mohamed Al-Daradji
Inland At the insistence of his friend Lakhdar, topographer Malek accepts a job in a base camp in Western Algeria, decimated by fundamentalists. He begins the first topographical readings, surveys the surrounding area and measures distances. During the night, his sleep is disturbed by powerful explosions. Coming back to the base-camp the following day, Malek discovers a young African woman hiding in a corner of his hut. When Lakhdar arrives to the site, both she and Malek have disappeared.
screening at 9.30PM, in the presence of the director Tariq Teguia
>> Cinema Days of Beirut full program
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