This El Gouna Film Festival (GFF) shed light on Lebanese cinema, through a number of films and a Career Achievement Award going to the Lebanese couple Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige in recognition of their contribution exploring memory, history, and storytelling across film, photography, and installations. Their notable film Memory Box was screened.

The exceptional Lebanese documentary Nahnou Fil Dakhil (We Are Inside), by Farah Kassem, which received the El Gouna Golden Star for Best Documentary as well as the NETPAC Award, is a delicate portrayal of a father-and-daughter relationship revealing layers of compassion and conflict.

In her 177-long documentary, Kassem returns to her hometown of Tripoli after 15 years of living in Berlin to be with her ageing father Mustafa, a 82-year-old widower who has been living with the family’s life-time maid Nana. In spite of his old age, he is a charismatic man and an established poet who has always been engaged in politics.

In the opening scenes, we see Mustafa loudly reading out the dedication of his new poetry collection to his daughter Farah and her brother Mohamed, saying he is proud of her but not happy she’s not married yet, and she argues with him lovingly about his conservative attitude on the issue. The viewer can already see their unique bond of conflict and humour.

Soon Farah decides to start writing poetry herself, just to be closer to him and to be able to have ongoing conversations and debates in an atmosphere that pleases him. During her early attempts to write poetry, she reads him what she has written only to be met with criticism, so she takes to practising with one of Mustafa’s friends who, it turns out, sees his work as very traditional.

Her poetry steadily improves and Mustafa has kind things to say about her first recital at one of his poetry club nights, a gathering of friends. He appreciates her even more when she is able to find the word he is looking for, and one of his friends points out she is “the daughter of a poet.”

In the second sequence of the film, Farah is focused on Mustafa’s health, a problem with his leg gradually making him dependent on her even though she too has a health problem – an ear issue. This is somehow symbolic of the political situation in Lebanon and especially Tripoli at the time. While they are confined to the house, Farah trains her camera on the window where a pigeon has recently laid her eggs, an image that crops up in her poems and stays with the viewer for the duration of the film.

Politics also takes up more space now as the upcoming election creates a window view that contrasts sharply with the warmth and love inside: the street full of military and police. Mustafa doesn’t want to know what it’s about.

After one of his visits to his doctor, Farah is taking him back home in her car when he insists on eating falafel and starts to tell her how after eating falafel he used to go to Cinema Palace where his favourite films screened, the 1952 The Robe for example.

In the third and last sequence of the film, Farah is more engaged with what is happening outside, driving through the main square of Tripoli where the 2019 demonstrations were taking place: an emotional scene accompanied by beautiful music. This coincides with her visit to her doctor: her ears have been troubling her more since she took part in the demonstration.

In the same sequence she has the most vulnerable conversation with her father, about his health. This is the first time she tells him why she’s making the film and he launches into a long philosophical conversation about how everything has an end, during which we hear Farah’s subtle weeping while we see them sitting next to each other on the bed from the back. It’s a technique the filmmaker uses frequently: when they are in the hospital, for example, the camera shows the room and only parts of their bodies.

Then, in one big shift, Mustafa is no longer there and we see the maid Nana collecting his medication in a plastic bag and talking to Farah about the night he died.

This is a documentary that successfully blends poetry and politics with charisma and irony, with all kinds of sincere sentiments shown in the right proportion at the right time, and intertwined to create an emotional crossroads.

Born in Tripoli, Farah Kassem earned her BA in audiovisual studies from Alba University and her MFA in documentary filmmaking from DocNomads. She has directed several short films like My Father Looks Like Abdel-Nasser (2012), Nettoyer Schaerbeek (2017) and You Make a Better Window Than You Do a Door (2017). We Are Inside is her feature debut, and it received a Special Mention at Visions du Réel and the Golden Apricot for best film in Regional Panorama at the Yerevan International Film Festival.

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Lebanese filmmaker Hady Zaccak takes the viewer on a nostalgic journey through the history of film theatres in Tripoli, tracing the city’s vanishing cinemas.  Zaccak calls his film Cilama, which is how “cinema” used to be pronounced in Arabic. The film brought to mind the same sentiments of the 2019 Sudanese documentary Hadith Aan Al-Ashgar (Talking About Trees), directed by Suhaib Gasmelbari, about four Sudanese filmmaker friends who shed light on the crisis of cinema in Islamist-ruled Sudan.

The 89-minute Cilama is a record of the collective memory of theatre owners and moviegoers alike. Through a rich collection of exclusive photographs of abandoned and decaying cinema and evocative voiceovers reflecting on the places in question, the film tells the story of the war and changing tastes but also the spirit of a bygone era.  

About 30 people from Tripoli share their memories of the city’s sociopolitical evolution and film nights and how they shaped their cultural identity. There were some 40 cinemas with one specialising in screening Egyptian films, where some old Egyptian film posters can still be seen around the city. Some of the selected guests remember the leftist priest who introduced the idea of the film club, others talked about the screening of one of Italy’s best-known productions, Bicycle Thieves (1948), directed by Vittorio De Sica, and how it enchanted the whole city back then.

Though it centres on Tripoli, the film resonates far beyond the city’s borders, conjuring up memories of similar cinemas across the region, particularly in Egypt, with names like Radio, Royal Palace and Diana. Egyptian films frequently surface in the interviewees’ stories, reminding us of their pivotal role in shaping the cultural landscape of the past.

Cilama is not just a documentary. It’s an engaging blend of history that stirs personal reflections and nostalgia. It serves as a poignant elegy for the film scene in Lebanon and the journey continues to expand to provide a broader picture of Lebanon’s past, illustrating how the films that captivated audiences mirrored the evolving mood of the people over time.

Zaccak, an academic and filmmaker born in Beirut in 1974, is known for over 20 documentaries and several books on the history of Lebanese cinema; Cilama is based on his book Al-Aard Al-Akhir: Sirret Cilama Tarablos (The Last Show: The Biography of Tripoli’s Cinemas, 2021), which includes more than 700 photos. His career in documentary films took off in the late 1990s with films like 1000 & 1000 Nights (1999), Beirut Points of View (2000), Refugees for Life (2006), The War of Peace (2007), Taxi Beirut (2011), Marcedes (2011), Honeymoon 58 (2013) and Kamal Joumblatt: Witness and Martyr (2015).

* A version of this article appears in print in the 14 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly