Pied de nez à la guerre
Lebanon | 2001 | 30 min
Language : Arabic
Subtitle : English
In April 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon. By asking her fellow citizens, friends and strangers alike, where they were on this date, Zeina Sfeir revisits this indelible stain on the country’s history. Yet her gaze focuses above all on today’s Lebanon: the scars that still shape people's views suggest that the war may not be quite over yet.
On 13 April 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon. By asking her fellow citizens, friends and strangers alike, where they were and what they were doing on that date, Zeina Sfeir revisits this indelible stain on the country’s history. The result is an unexpected contrasting of often insignificant everyday events and subjective accounts of the explosion of a conflict that would brutally change Lebanese lives. This phenomenon, involving failing memory and differing points of view, repeats itself when the director asks the participants the same question about 13 October 1990, the starting date of the first period of lasting peace seen in Lebanon in fifteen years. Is the conflict really part of the past? “Armed warfare is over, but the war for existence continues” is how one of the protagonists puts it. The film focuses on today’s Lebanon: the scars that still shape people's views suggest that the war may not be quite over yet.
Jasmin Basic
