10º Edição – OLHARES DO MEDITERRÂNEO 2023
MENÇÃO HONROSA HONORABLE MENTION COMPETIÇÃO COMEÇAR A OLHAR SCHOOL FILM COMPETITION
OUÇA AQUI LISTEN TO DANIELA STEPHAN
COMEÇAR A OLHAR
||||||| DOM 12 NOV • 14H00 | CINEMA SÃO JORGE • SALA 3
https://vimeo.com/800575021?share=copy
Daniela Stephan
Reino Unido, Líbano • Fic • 2022 • 17’
Mounia, uma jovem de 20 e tal anos, procura o seu gato numa cidade agora destruída, Beirute. Acompanhada pelo seu melhor amigo Ghady, que está mais interessado em namoriscar uma jornalista britânica, embarca numa jornada para descobrir o que lhe foi tirado.
Mounia, a girl in her 20s, is looking for her cat in a now-destroyed city, Beirut. Accompanied by her best friend Ghady, who is more interested in flirting with a British journalist, she embarks on a journey to find what has been taken from her.
Argumento Screenplay Daniela Stephan
Produção Production Kassey Song and Fayez Abou Khater
Fotografia Cinematography Fatma Rasha Shehadeh
Montagem Editing Daniela Stephan
Música Music Hayat Selim
Direcção de Arte Art Design Rania Habbouchi
Design de Som Sound Design Tony Elk
Com With Marilyne Naaman, Pio Chihane, Jo McGarry, Salma Chalaby
Escola School London Film School
Estreia Nacional Portuguese Première
Prémios Awards
Grand Prix, Les Nuits Med, U Filmu Cortu, Córsega, França | Prémio do Público, Menção Honrosa, Beirut Intl Women FF, Líbano
Festivais Festivals
InterFilm Berlin, Alemanha | Lebanese FF, Canadá | Flickers’ Rhode Island IFF, EUA
Nota da Realizadora Director’s Statement
On the 4th of August 2020 a part of me died, as a person and as a director. The strongest ever non-nuclear bomb exploded in the heart of Beirut, leaving millions homeless, 400 people dead, and thousands injured. The socio-political climate has been charged with so much corruption and uncertainty that somehow the 4th of August blast didn’t feel like a surprise. It felt like a moment that for so many years, we were all, anxiously, anticipating. I had written a completely different script for my graduation film for the London Film School. A story about a group of 16 year old friends, roaming in the streets of Beirut on a school day during a riot. A story I cared deeply about, shedding light on the lost generation of after-war Beirut, an almost anarchic city. A portrait of Beirut and its youth. Then, all of sudden while wrapping up the final script the Beirut Blast happened: my locations were all in rubbles, I didn’t have a film, no more city, and my cat was lost. What is the purpose of making a film in the face of such tragedy? I found myself feeling guilty searching for my cat knowing that others had lost so much more. I didn’t want to make a film anymore and questioned the medium itself. Then after a couple of months I started writing again and somehow, convinced myself that even if cinema wasn’t here to drastically change anything, it is nonetheless a medium of questions, and community and… I had to survive. So I made “The Sun Sets On Beirut”. We didn’t want any fancy equipment, as we felt it would be more appropriate to shoot with what we had. It felt wrong to use our budget on fancy cameras when the world we were in had collapsed. We decided to use the budget we had for actors, crew, locations and post-production while leaving the appropriate amount for camera and lights. We went back to the core of storytelling. A docu-fiction style that would permit us to emancipate ourselves as filmmakers from this reality and at the same time portray it. The documentary inspired style al- lowed us to quickly get an emotional connection to the character and thus was a pivotal style choice, because we are able to see Mounia as a real person, highlighting her emotional struggle and inner conflict. Identity, belonging and loss are at the core of what I needed to transmit on images. I have not lived through the war, I had felt it through my everyday life and relationships. The 4th of August brought all of these feelings to the surface. I didn’t want to make a film “about a tragedy” but about the universality of the emotions felt during this period: grief and loss of identity. Showing the destroyed Beirut through Mounia’s eyes I engaged in an attempt to question the themes of loss, identity, intergenerational trauma, and the future of oneself in relation to the past. Roaming the streets, accompanied by her friend Ghady, she finds herself questioning her reality, her future and her identity: Her home has become a living grave. While watching the film, I hope you also laugh, cry and wonder the way I did.
