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In the form of diaries, the filmmaker narrates four tumultuous years of a nation in turmoil, battling to break free from its own chains.
In 2018, Joumana, a fiery feminist writer, poet and activist runs for election defying a political system that has been suffocating Lebanon for 40 years. She gets elected, only to be ousted the very next day through fraud, leaving her supporters furious. In 2019, the people’s rage turns into a revolution. The streets swell with thousands of voices. Among them Perla Joe, a fearless woman who rapidly becomes a symbol of this uprising. Georges is the guardian of that mysterious and violent past. He is a veteran of the Lebanese Civil War (1975−1990) where he lost a leg but clung to his delusions of “glory.”
Myriam El Hajj is a Lebanese filmmaker whose first feature-length documentary, A Time To Rest, premiered at Visions du Réel-Nyon in 2015 and screened at several international festivals, winning multiple awards. El Hajj teaches Cinema at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts and is a member of several film commissions, including the CNC. She’s also a founding member of Rawiyat-Sisters in Film — a collective of women filmmakers from the Arab world and the diaspora. Diaries from Lebanon is her last work which premiered at Berlinale 2024, in the Panorama section