ONCE UPON A TIME IN BEIRUT: THE CINEMA OF JOCELYNE SAAB

Lyrical and uncompromising, the films of Jocelyne Saab (1948-2019) are at once landmark works of Lebanese cinema and masterpieces of the essay film form. The poetic voiceovers of her movies recall Chris Marker, and her fragmented, diaristic images are reminiscent of Jonas Mekas. But Saab’s poetic vision, and her intimate interactions with the displaced, the exiled, and the voiceless, mark her films as uniquely her own. Trained as a radio and television journalist, Saab turned her attention to nonfiction films in the wake of the Lebanese Civil War. Her epic, impressionistic series of films about Beirut that followed capture a city at once wounded, mournful, and bristling with life and energy, chronicling an era during which “a kind of bitter poetry has replaced the carelessness of the past.”

“Saab’s films raise cinema to the fullness of its responsibilities.” - Nicole Brenez