Vanessa Kanaan

Jamil and Milad are brothers with very different personalities. Jamil is a get-up-and-go carpenter, following in his father's footsteps. Milad is a sensitive trumpeter and dreamer. As their home country, Syria, sinks further into war, Jamil emigrates first to Beirut and then makes an illegal journey to Sweden. Milad stays in Damascus, but eventually can’t take it any longer and decides to leave to Berlin. Their cousin Wissam records their journey for over five years, bringing back childhood memories while questioning the true meaning of home. The traumatic war in Syria plays a background role in this documentary, which focuses more on the psychological effects of being uprooted and the way the brothers, who had previously hardly travelled, deal with emigration. It draws with humility and admiration the human ability to cope with change, as radical as it can be. Jamil and Milad are achievers, each adapting his own way.

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 sent to her best friend from 1980’s Beirut. 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.

ギリシャの北に位置する北マケドニアで製作された傑作ドキュメンタリー。電気も水道もない谷で、寝たきりの盲目の老母と暮らすヨーロッパ最後の自然養蜂家の女性のユニークな日常を、3年にわたってとらえていく。