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Beyroutou el lika (Beirut the Encounter)

Borhane Alaouie

Beirut, 1977. Zeina (Nadine Acoury) is about to leave the country, just like many Lebanese are doing again today. Haydar (Haitham El Amine) hasn’t been in the city for very long; he had to leave his village because of the civil war. The two haven’t seen each other in years, although a sense of longing has endured. The nature of their relationship – whether friendship, romance, or something in between – is deliberately left vague by the film’s director, Borhane Alaouié, who died in September. The camera follows the two of them for around 24 hours, past checkpoints and ruins, stuck in traffic, waiting in vain in a café. Suspense arises from the question of whether they will manage to see each other one last time; the film’s allure is derived from the tender, melancholy atmosphere inherent to the images of the damaged city and the characters’ soft voices. We’re screening the 2K version of the film restored by the Royal Belgian Film Archive as a world premiere: a reunion after 40 years, as Beirut al lika screened in Competition at the 1982 Berlinale. Below Alaouie's film is a music video for an hour spent by Sofi Naufal, made using footage from ‘Beirut the encounter’ by Borhane Alaouie. The film climaxes in Beirut airport during the Lebanese war, the same airport that some of my family including Naufal’s mum left Lebanon to Europe from in the 80s. This film helped Naufal express something she struggled to put into words.
Country: Lebanon
Time: 97
Year: 1981