Out of the Past 2022 / Beirut al lika / Lebanon, Tunisia, Belgium 1981
Beirut, 1977. The early years of the Lebanese Civil War. A Shī'a man (Haitham El Amine) and a Christian bourgeois woman (Nadine Acoury) attempt to meet one last time before the latter elopes to the U.S. Corruption, poverty, garbage crises, sectarianism… This is Beirut as seen by the late, great master Borhane Alaouié: a wounded, collapsing metropolis no different from the Beirut of today.
Beirut, 1977. A brief cautious break during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). Over a course of a single day, a man and a woman attempt to meet one last time before the latter elopes to the U.S. She’s a Christian bourgeois from the eastern neighborhood of Achrafieh; he’s a Shī'a forced to leave his southern village. Both are lost souls failing to find a place for themselves in an alienating, self-destructive city. Corruption, poverty, garbage crises, sectarianism….This is Beirut as seen by the late, great master Borhane Alaouié: a wounded, collapsing metropolis no different from the Beirut of today. A Golden Bear nominee at Berlin in 1982, the restored version of Alaouié’s achingly personal document cements its reputation as one of the Arab masterpieces of the 1980s – a hidden gem that influenced Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas.
Joseph Fahim
101 min / Color, DCP
Director Borhane Alaouié
/ Screenplay Ahmad Beydoun
/ Dir. of Photography Charles Van Damme, Alexis Grivas
/ Sound Henri Morelle
/ Editor Eliane Dubois
/ Art Director Jean Louis Mainguy
/ Producer Hassen Daldoul
/ Production Restoration presented by Nadi Lekol Nas & Cinematek
/ Coproduction Établissement arabe de production cinématographique, SATPEC, Cinélibre
/ Cast Haitham El Amine, Nadine Acoury, Renée Deek, Refaat Haidar
/ Sales Nadi lekol Nas
Borhane Alaouié (1943, Arnoun, Lebanon - 2021, Brussels). Selected filmography: Kafr kasem (1975), Il ne suffit pas que Dieu soit avec les pauvres (1978, doc.), Beirut the Encounter (Beirut al lika, 1981), Lettre d'un temps d'exil (1988, doc.), Khalass (2007).
Nadi lekol Nas
, , Beirut
Lebanon
Phone: +961 3 888 763
E-mail: [email protected]
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