As electricity keeps failing in the wounded city of Beirut, Khalil reemerges from the darkness of an elevator to be blinded by Hanna, torch in hand, in sheer disbelief. A decade after his false death, his inscrutable gaze isn’t well received within a seemingly fractured community. “It is hard enough to live with the living to also live with the dead’’ she says, looking out of the window. Temporality feels similarly fractured and unexpectedly suspended within the film, underscored by testimonies of the actors appearing in a raw, unscripted set-up – real life witnesses of a residual pain and collective desire for rebirth. Salhab reinvents a painful past of conflict while retaining a unique sense of levity and humour that characterises the resilient inhabitants of Beirut. (Ane Lopez)

Ghassan Salhab (غسان سلهب, born 4 May 1958) is a Lebanese film director, screenwriter and educator born in Dakar, Senegal, living and working in Beirut. He has directed eight feature-length films in addition to numerous shorter-form essay films and video works. His work has screened widely on the international stage, including dedicated focuses at La Rochelle International Film Festival, JCC Carthage, GIFF (Mexico), La Cinémathèque du Québec amongst others. He teaches at institutions throughout Lebanon and has published texts and articles in various magazines, as well as two books: fragments du Livre du naufrage and à contre-jour (depuis Beyrouth).

Chinese Ink (2016), Son Image (2016), The Valley (2014), Everybody know this is nowhere (2012), The Mountain (2011), Le massacre des innocents (2010), 1958 (2009), (Posthume) (2007), Dead Time (2006), Le dernier homme (The last man) (2006), Brève rencontre avec Jean Luc Godard (2005), Lost Narcissus (2004), My dead body, my living body (2003), Terra incognita (2002), Nobody’s Rose (2000), Baalbeck (2000), Of Seduction (1999), Beyrouth fantôme (1998), Afrique fantôme (1994), The Other (1991), After Death (1991), The Key (1986)