UNEASY BALANCE
Two Stories of Lebanese Identity and Displacement

Lebanon has always balanced its western and eastern cultures with its fragile ethnic and religious make up, and thus Lebanese identity has always been contentious. The first film discusses young Lebanese identity after the 2020 Beirut explosion and the subsequent civil unrest, and in the second film we see the identity of displaced Palestinians who have found safety in Lebanon after the 1948 Nakba.

Screening followed by a Q&A

Films in this Programme:

What If We Were Happy?
Dir: Julie-Yara Atz, 30 mins

Are events cyclical? Does history repeat itself? Through the director’s eyes, we follow Lebanese photographer Nadim, street artist Roula and the director’s Syrian flatmate Haifa as they discuss being alive in Lebanon nowadays.

The Jacket
Dir: Mathijs Poppe, 71 mins

The Jacket is a portrait of Jamal Hindawi, a Palestinian man who lives in exile with his family in the Shatila Refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. Together with his friends, he makes political theater about their profound connection to their homeland, Palestine, and their situation as refugees in their country of residence, Lebanon. When Jamal embarks on a journey to search for an important lost theater prop, he witnesses how the successive political and economic crises have disrupted an entire region and its people.