Danielle Arbid.

Its latest aggression against Lebanon prevented the film from being shot in Beirut, so Arbid chose to “create” her Beirut in Saint-Denis. She did not rely on traditional sets; instead, she filmed streets, sidewalks, and buildings of Beirut, then had actors perform in front of these images, adding a poetic touch and a striking sense of artifice to the work. This turned the apparent “flaw” into a strengthening element, following a logic of containment or mise en abyme. The director of "The Wars of Love" refused to shoot in a city merely resembling Beirut, such as Marseille. This choice was political, a response to the threat of the city’s erasure. “If Lebanon disappears, it will survive in my film,” she said during the presentation.

The Palestinian actress Hiam Abbas dominates the screen, present in most shots, carrying the film on her shoulders. She is Suzanne, a woman in her sixties, widow of a man she did not love, and mother to a daughter and son, her relationships weaving a complex fabric of tension: the late husband, brother, children, neighbors, colleagues, and even herself. Yet Arbid does not burden her with full responsibility for what unfolds, portraying her instead as a product of a racist, harsh, and inquisitive society—one that releases its repression, symbolized by the scarcity of water, by targeting the most vulnerable, particularly foreign residents in Lebanon, especially those with dark skin, who are still often addressed with humiliating terms.

From here, the story unfolds: a fleeting encounter between Suzanne and a Sudanese young man named Osman (Amine Benrachid) develops into a relationship, despite their age difference and the ever-watchful eyes of society’s observers and inquisitors. In this meeting of two bodies and worlds, Arbid concentrates her questions and anxieties—about desire and power, about the body as a perpetual battleground in the Middle East, and about love as an act of rebellion in a society suffocated by difference. She approaches Lebanese reality from a position of intense emotional engagement with a country she continually interrogates, even as she recreates it from afar.

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Rania Rafei takes us to Tripoli, about 90 km north of Beirut. Tripoli is her hometown, though her relationship with it has been one of ebb and flow, as is true for most of us with our places of origin. In her second feature-length documentary, "The Day of Wrath: Tales from Tripoli," she fixes her camera on Lebanon’s second city to observe, question, probe, and uncover—driven by a desire to examine herself as well, in the wake of her Arab nationalist father’s passing and their relationship, which oscillated between closeness and estrangement.

Rania Rafei.

How does one speak of a troubled city like this? At times, the film seems preoccupied with this very question, yet beyond the “how” lies a more fundamental inquiry: what is the city, and how is its identity formed? In Tripoli’s case, we encounter a diverse identity, woven from multiple religions, shifting allegiances, and sometimes conflicting temperaments. Yet history offers a clear lesson: no one has ever been able to exclude or erase the other, regardless of how alliances have shifted or the fervor of causes has waned—a point often highlighted in reflections on the city’s leftist experiences.

Rafei selects five pivotal moments that have shaped modern Tripoli and the consciousness of its inhabitants—from the uprising against the French mandate on the eve of independence to the popular uprising in 2019, in which the city played a notable role. Over years of wandering between place and memory, the film operates on multiple layers: at times adopting the style of a television report, capturing the citizens’ perennial complaints the moment the camera appears (“Where is the state?” or “Where is the conscience of the world?” when speaking of Gaza); at other times, it takes on an intimate tone, expressed through a long letter from the director to her father, whom she envisions as a symbol of possible peace.

The film lingers on testimonies of varying significance, some scarcely worthy of extension—particularly when childlike innocence slips into mere repetition of what is heard at home. Interestingly, the most daring and rebellious voices never appear on screen, remaining off-frame. It is as if the truth in Tripoli refuses to announce itself, lingering instead in the shadows.

From this cinematic journey, several films seem to emerge—a natural outcome when the personal and the public intertwine over many years. Yet the work is guided by two main threads: one owes nothing to anyone, striving for a free approach that resists any ready-made narrative; the other is attentive to the public, taking the form of a love letter to a city that continues to call its children back, no matter where they go.

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Childlike innocence also appears in "Someday, A Child" by Marie Rose Osta, who situates her camera in Akkar, a region she knows intimately—its terrain and its people—bringing the film to the festival competition three years after a Lebanese short film won the Golden Bear in the same category.

Marie Rose Osta.

A bearded man, Antoine Daher, and several boys, led by a particularly gifted child, Khaled Hassan. A rural house, familial warmth, and a natural setting that feels like the story’s first nurturer. It is no trivial detail that the filming took place in the director’s grandfather’s house, for the location is more than a set—it is a repository of memory, tied to both walls and faces.

The boys emerge from the earth’s depths, evoking the worlds of Emir Kusturica. This impression is reinforced by the Albanian director of photography’s detailed explanations of his aesthetic choices, making the imagery as much a theoretical statement as it is a work of visual art.

However, the film soon departs from this familiar horizon, taking a more enigmatic and restrained path. Its vision does not reveal itself overtly but through suggestion. The work provides its raw material, leaving the viewer to capture and frame the implicit message. Planes in the sky alone are enough to shift the film from its intimate focus to a more turbulent realm. The boy’s daily life is both earthly and celestial, with the sound of planes punctuating the screen and setting the rhythm of his existence.

Osta, a graduate of audio-visual studies from ALBA University and experienced in advertising, demonstrates remarkable command of her visual tools. She does not shy away from filming in darkness, nor does she hesitate to direct a child and non-professional actors in a debut work presented at a major festival like Berlin. Having previously presented "Then Came Dark", a hymn to nature, she now resurrects that hymn in her new film, where nature, in all its harshness, permeates the characters. Yet an element seeps in from outside the immediate context, sowing anxiety: a sound polluting the sky, like a sword suspended above heads, recalling the blade that once cut trees in her previous film.

***

Lamia Joreige.