Beirut of Stone and Memory (1992)

  • Gold medal at the Games of La Francophonie – Paris (1994)
  • Jury’s Merit at the African and Creole Cinema Days – Montreal (1995)

End of 1991, downtown Beirut was set to be destroyed. Driven by the need to preserve a trace, I filmed the last images of the downtown that I had known intact, and later destroyed by the war.
Thanks to Joseph Abdo Khoury’s family, I was able to make a film at the service of memory. The images do not attempt to give an explanation, they simply enable us to see and to listen to the ruins. Poems by Nadia Tueni complement these images on screen. Or vice versa, who knows?

Directed by Philippe Aractingi
Film produced by Deal Production / Diffused on ARTE
Length : 18’