Filmmaker Statement

On August 4th 2020, the Beirut port explosion killed 220 people, injured 6’500, and left 300’00 without a home. I got to Beirut three days after. Witnessing the destruction, seeing friends injured and learning about the passing of neighbours was devastating. Talking to residents, I started recording their stories in order to keep a trace of what had happened. I returned to Paris with hours of recordings. When I found footage I had filmed of Beirut back in 2019, I decided to combine it with the testimonies to make this short doc. I wanted to steer clear from sensationalism or miserabilism (which have been the main prism through which the West covered this tragedy) to simply focus on what was running through the minds of the ‘average’ Lebanese: guilt, uncertainty and nostalgia, but also a will to find a way to make sense of what had happened in order to move on. Yet despite it all, they refused to bemoan their fate and somehow still found the strength to start rebuilding their live.