Boats & Brides (2024)

Waltz with Bashir

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

We Loved Each Other So Much

Inhabitants of Beirut talk about their love for the singer Fairuz.

The Lady of the Palace

Sayedat Al-Kasr traces the history of the Joumblatt family of Mount Lebanon from the 17th century to the present, focusing on early 20th century leader and politician Nazira Joumblatt. Born in 1889, Nazira ascended the throne of the Moukhtara palace in 1923, following the assassination of her husband Fouad and the resignation of her brother Aly Joumblatt. She presided over the region as Lady of the Palace for twenty-five years while raising her son Kamal, preparing him to take his place in a long line of Jumblatt leaders. Famous for her wisdom and strong personality, Nazira boldly entered the Lebanese political scene at a time when this field was entirely dominated by men. Unwavering, she contributed to maintaining peace and stability in Lebanon for many years, earning the respect of men and women, whether Druze or Maronites.

Recovery

Jean-Claude walks his dog in a neighborhood forever stuck in reconstruction. On his trip, he wonders about life, mortality, and 'what if' scenarios while remembering fragments from the direct impact of the second that almost cost him his life on August 4. At the moment of the explosion, the end of the world, bodies, buildings, roads, and cities may shatter. Perhaps the universe itself breaks apart. But the most severe fragmenting remains that of memory. A picture here and a sound there are vaguely reconstituted. Can a future be built from such a memory? Can it rebuild what was lost? Is it time to leave?

Kaab l Dayaa

Intimate discussion with the inhabitants of Kfarbaal, a village tucked in the mountains above Byblos. We hear them share their experiences, deceptions and dreams.

Lebanon in a Whirlwind

A few months after the incident of April 13, 1975, during which Palestinian civilians were machine-gunned by Phalangist militiamen, the toll is most tragic: six thousand dead, twenty thousand wounded, incessant kidnappings, a semi-destroyed capital. This film traces the origins of the Lebanese conflict, the perception of a society that goes to war while singing. A unique document on the Lebanese civil war. Beyond the religious war, the painting of a social and political reality that has not changed much, more than four decades later.

The Lebanese Rocket Society

Lebanon's brief flirtation with space travel in the 1960s becomes a poignant metaphor for the Arab world's utopian dreams in this riveting documentary.

World War C

It's war. War against an invisible enemy that is not as deadly as we are told. The world is changing rapidly. Disproportionate measures are taken worldwide that disrupt society as a whole. A dichotomy in society forced vaccinations and restrictions on freedom. Have we had the worst? Or is there something more disturbing to awaiting us.

Edge of the Valley

A nine-year-old Syrian refugee girl contemplates her increasingly bleak future after being forced to drop out of school in the midst of Lebanon’s unprecedented economic collapse and battle with Covid-19.

Greetings to Kamal Jumblatt

Tribute to the Druze Kamal Jumblatt, Minister of Economy and Agriculture (1946) and founder of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in 1949. He was one of the architects of the departure of President Bechara el-Khoury (1952), before playing a major role in the events of 1958. From 1960 to 1964, Kamal Jumblatt assumed, under the presidency of Fouad Chehab, various ministerial functions . . After the conflict of June 1967, he gradually approached the Palestinian organizations. In 1969 he became Minister of the Interior; in August 1970, he supported the election of Soleiman Frangié as President of the Republic. Following the Lebanese-Palestinian clashes of May 1973, he took sides against the head of state, established himself as the leader of the National Movement in 1975 and engaged in a revolutionary armed struggle against the Lebanese Front. Hostile to Syria's intervention in Lebanon, he broke with it (March 1976). He was assassinated near a Syrian checkpoint in 1977.

Yalla, Baba!

Lebanese director Angie Obeid embarks on a road trip with her father, Mansour, retracing a journey he made 42 years ago. She tries to reach out to the young Mansour, understand the decisions he made when he was her age, and find common ground. The film explores the challenges and opportunities that arise when navigating the boundaries between tradition and modernity, family and individuality, home and the wider world.

Kamal Joumblatt, Witness and Martyr

Kamal Jumblatt, the Master of Moukhtara Castle, recounts the major events of his life until his assassination on March 16, 1977. The film takes us on a global journey from Lebanon to India, in the footsteps of Kamal Jumblatt, the founder of the PSP (Progressive Socialist Party), the leader, the rebel, the reformer, the thinker, the poet, the Yogi … Kamal Jumblatt (1917-1977) becomes the last witness... of his own life.

Líban, retrat de l'empoderament

Plot unavailable

Full Stop

Wajdi and Maia are spending their last days together before Wajdi travels to a new start away from the Lebanese situation.

Deaf

Beirut, Lebanon. Hassan is assembling wooden boards. His wife is dead. He is building her coffin. Tamara and Rami, the children, in their twenties, are helping him as best they can to fulfill her last wish: to be buried in her childhood village, abandoned for more than 20 years.

Memory Box

Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

Incendies

A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

Perhaps Today...

Oum Karim, a 60-year-old Beiruti lady, is used to preparing Lahm Bi Ajin (Lebanese ham pie) once per week.

Lovely Day

Alain and Virginie are getting married today, but Alain is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The impending reunion of his divorced parents has plunged him into deep anxiety, only made worse by the shady schemes of his cousin and best man Edouard, who seems determined to get him involved. The groom now has only one ambition: to survive the happiest day of his life.

Nahla

After the battle of Kfar Chouba in Lebanon in January 1975, Larbi Nasri, a young Algerian journalist, was caught in the whirlwind of events preceding the civil war. Linked to Maha, Hind, Raouf and Michel who surround Nahla, he witnesses the construction of the myth of Nahla, a singer adored by the Arab population. One day Nahla loses her voice on stage. The atmosphere of crisis that reigns around her is spreading like an infection. Larbi, fascinated, loses his footing and gets bogged down.

I Don’t Like My Car Anymore

Two lovers. Both are immigrants. Their relationship is the last thing that they kept from home, the last rope they are attached to. Marc holds that rope dearly, Léa wants to cut it. Her love of Paris has taken over the love of Marc

Book of Suffocations

Torn between faith and desire, a young Arab man at a religious facility must confront his queer identity as he navigates the path to salvation and the allure of forbidden love.

Ransomed

In Beirut 1986, during the Lebanese civil war a Korean diplomat is taken hostage without a trace. Two years pass and long forgotten, a young diplomat Min-jun receives a phone call proving that the hostage is still alive. With the given mission, Min-jun is sent to Beirut to save the hostage with a bag of ransom money.

In Lights

A music producer faces the relentless pressures of work, relationships, and a high-stakes album over 24 intense hours.

The Boy Who Wore the Sun

David, a 21-year-old guy who wears a scoliosis plastic corset, hides a shameful circular scar on his stomach. one night, before one month of his skin graft surgery, he’s put in an uncomfortable skinny dipping situation with his friends at the beach. what will he do?

Alitisal (The Call)

As a deadly explosion shatters Lebanon three immigrant siblings living abroad confront their mental health struggles amid uncertainty about their parents' fate.

Nike's Big Bet

On October 1, 2019 Alberto Salazar, perhaps the greatest track coach on Earth, was suspended for doping violations. Did he do it? Or is Salazar being victimized for his obsessive methods of pushing athletes to their absolute limits.

A Reckoning in Boston

Kafi Dixon dreams of starting a land cooperative for women of color who have experienced trauma and disenfranchisement in the city of Boston. By day she drives a city bus; at night she studies the humanities in a tuition-free course. Her classmate Carl Chandler, a community elder, is the class’s intellectual leader. White suburban filmmaker James Rutenbeck documents the students’ engagement with the humanities. He looks for transformations but is awakened to the violence, racism and gentrification that threaten Kafi and Carl's very place in the city. Troubled by his failure to bring the film together, he enlists the pair as collaborators with a share in the film revenues. Five years on, despite many obstacles, Kafi and Carl arrive at surprising new places in their lives—and James does too.

Misty - The Erroll Garner Story

The brilliant self-taught pianist Erroll Garner left his mark on jazz forever. His song Misty, which he allegedly composed between two concerts on an aeroplane, immediately became one of the great jazz standards and is still one of the most covered ballads in the world today. Who was the man behind the ever-friendly smile from the ghettos of Pittsburgh, whose talent brought him to the biggest international stages?

Machine Hallucination

Machine Hallucination whirs and throbs for thirty minutes as a machine processes images and then responds to them. There are moments when glimmers of New York are completely clear: you feel as if you’re moving over the city’s grid at a great height, or glimpse images of buildings right before they start to morph beyond recognition. Other times, you are looking at the data architecture, at graphic plottings, or metadata tags of the original photos.

Regard Noir

Plot unavailable

Tremor

The anguish a woman experienced on the night of September 7, 2017, caused by the 8.2 magnitude earthquake that struck southern Mexico and the danger of another impending disaster.

Bunny Gallery

Playboy's Playmate Rachel Harris (Miss November 2015) runs an art gallery, using other Playmates Cassandra Dawn (Miss June 2018), Dominique Jane (Miss August 2015), and Shauna Sexton (Miss May 2018) as her models.

Honey Bunny Duracell

A vivid encounter with former three time Czech National Boxing Champion. Experience the rise and fall in the career of a female fighter.

Telebear

When a new murderer in town travels through the phone, Detective Rick finds that all signs point to the culprit being a bear. But bears can't use phones. Can they?

Partition Libre - Sur Les Traces De Patrick Berhault

Plot unavailable

Belmondo l'incorrigible

Charismatic and resourceful, seducer and daredevil, Jean-Paul Belmondo has always played his roles as he lived, at a thousand miles an hour. He had only one passion: to entertain the public with his smile, his naturalness, his energy, his stunts. But contrary to appearances, his destiny was full of pitfalls. This film lifts the veil on a founding childhood that allowed him to overcome many obstacles throughout his life thanks to the tutelary figures of his father and mother. Told from the inside with the help of his autobiography, interviews and unpublished archives, this epic story traces the career of this turbulent young actor who launched the New Wave in Breathless before becoming the popular Bebel, an indestructible and provocative vigilante. From film to film, this documentary paints an intimate portrait of a man who built himself up to reach the top: his triumphs but also his trials, his doubts, his secrets, his angers, his clowning, his disappointments or his personal dramas.

King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen

A feature-length documentary focusing on the acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen, writer-director of "Black Caesar," "It's Alive," "God Told Me To," "Q," "The Stuff," and many more.