Lebanon

In Lebanon, many parents can simply not afford to have their children officially registered. As a result, these undocumented kids do not exist in the eyes of the state and have no rights. That is the fate of young Zain. But Zain is a fighter: even at his young age, he is already supporting his family with various odd jobs. When Zain's parents plan to marry off his eleven-year-old sister Sahar, Zain does everything in his power to stop them.

In Costa Brava, Lebanon, the free-spirited Badri family escape the overwhelming pollution and social unrest of Beirut by seeking refuge in a utopic mountain home they built for themselves. Unexpectedly, an illegal garbage landfill begins construction right next door. With it comes the very trash and corruption they were trying to escape. As the landfill rises, so do family tensions. The Badris are left with a choice: stay off the grid or leave their idyllic home and face the reality they fled, hoping to stay true to their ideals.

Lebanon, July 2006. Israel is fighting Hezbollah. Even though Marwan is about to emigrate to Canada with his wife, Rana, he wants to take advantage of a brief ceasefire to get his father out of the war zone. But the fighting flares up again. Marwan, who becomes separated from the worried Rana, is forced to take refuge with two friends of his father in one of the few houses still standing. A desperate married couple join them. Suddenly, they hear the voices of Israeli soldiers above them, unaware of their downstairs 'neighbours'. As bombs rain down, the tension rises.

Three women in a bus in Lebanon. They have the same destination: a men's penitentiary. The first woman wants to visit her husband whom she hasn't seen since their day of marriage. The second one has only one goal: to get her husband who has to serve a long sentence to sign the divorce papers and thus gain back her freedom. The third woman is afraid. She carries the gun that her husband, a prison guardian, has forgotten at home. A straight road seems to be leading them quickly to their destination: from Beirut centre to the Mermel prison in the desert. However, the journey becomes complicated. The sound of a stray bullet causes quite a stir and also indicates that dangerous and terrible things are going on in this country which is at civil war. There are rumours about a massacre. Groups of refugees are spotted. The journey of the three women continues, a journey to the inner self of the country.

Wandering aimlessly after losing his memory in a car accident, a man is taken in by the inhabitants of a farm in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, whose secret business is the drugs they manufacture in a laboratory on the closely guarded property. The presence of this nameless stranger has consequences for the clandestine community. Little separates beauty and horror here. A latent sense of danger pervades the vast swathes of sublime landscape. A catastrophe looms. Tensions also rise in the cramped quarters of the house. The identity of the man without a past becomes an increasing issue as doubts regarding his amnesia rear their head. Is he a doctor or a mechanic? An angel or a spy? Like a blank page, he lends himself to fantasies of all kinds and ultimately becomes a prisoner. At once concrete and otherworldly, with a powerful soundtrack and images of great intensity, the film shows a set of melancholy existences on the eve of the apocalypse. Alongside radio news reports on current political crises, it leaves ample room for poetry, painting and a love song, and thus questions the status of art in times of terror and war, that is, in the here and now.