Beirut

Raed Yassin

Beirut is a documentary about the marginal characters living in the city’s peripheries. A horse race gambler, a pigeon raiser, a squatter, a fisherman, and a street racer speak about their passions for risk, habit, occupation, and speed. Patient or restless, they occupy the sea but also the rooftops, watching over the waking hours of the city and the somnambulant wanderings of its citizens. Each hobby has its proper terminology, and every obsessive his way of circumventing the conventional flows of city life. Yassin employs simple techniques such as monochromes and slow-motion to accentuate the habitual gestures of these figures, fabricating a playful, fast-paced, and cut-up ode to Beirut, which could be itself a suburb to an imaginary city.
Country: Lebanon
Time: 15
Language: Arabic
Subtitles: English