Semaan Bil Day’ia
The One-Man Village
by Simon El Habre
Lebanon, 2008
HD
Colour
Length: 86’
Language: Arabic
Italian premiere
Semaan lives a simple, tranquil life on his farm in the small Christian village of Ain el-Halazoun, in the Lebanese mountains. The village was totally destroyed and abandoned during the civil and religious war that battered Lebanon from 1975 to 1990. Today, many years after the official reconciliation, its inhabitants regularly return to the village to cultivate the gardens and visit their former homes, but they leave in the evening, at sunset. From a discreet and humorous viewpoint, the director observes what remains of life in this village that has become a ghost town and tries to reflect on collective and individual memory, in a country that seems to have lost both, and that is always one step from a new civil war. The story of Semaan, who going against the tide decides to return home, is also, above all, the story of a wound that heals slowly. Impeccable photography, sound, and editing.
Simon El Habre
Born in Beirut in 1975, after earning a diploma in Film & Video Editing at the Femis in Paris and in Audiovisual Directing at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Art, he began teaching Video and Visual Expression in 2001 at the latter school. He has directed numerous videos and reports for the Arab satellite channels MBC, al-Arabia, and al-Jazeera. He works as a director and editor.
Director: Simon El Habre
Screenplay: Simon El Habre
Photography: Bassem Fayad, Marc Karam
Editing: Simon El Habre
Sound: Chadi Rokouz
Producer: Simon El Habre, Jad Abi-Khalil, Irit Neidhart
Production Company: Beirut DC
Beirut DC
Selim El Khoury Street
Akiki Bldg., Furn El Chebbak
Beirut, Lebanon
T. + 961 1 293212
F. + 961 1 293212
simon@beirutdc.org
www.beirutdc.org
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