Beyrouth ma ville AKA Beirut, My City ( Jocelyne Saab, 1983)

Beirut, My City finds Saab and her collaborator, the playwright and director Roger Assaf, returning to the shell of her former home following Israels 1982 invasion, finding small glimmers of hope in the chaos of refugee camps and the rubble of decimated neighborhoods. I consider this to be my most important film, the one that is the closest to my heart. In 1982, my house was burning. Thats not nothing. It was a very old house. 150 years of history went up in flames and disappeared. All of that is suddenly destroyed. The family home, wiped off the map, gone from the city, having become a pile of ruins.