Wled Bayrout

Accompanied by his father, who took part in the reconstruction of Beirut in 1992, the filmmaker wanders through Dalieh, a small city-centre port where the last families of fishermen are soon to be evicted as the district is privatised.

This poetic and socially engaged peregrination through the Dalieh port district in Beirut is firmly anchored in the intimate dimension – that of the photos which the filmmaker’s father, a major player in the reconstruction of the Lebanese capital from 1992, insisted on taking in front of the buildings that were important to him as a child. On the pretext of reconstruction, an oligarch presenting himself as a generous citizen contrived to privatise a large area of Beirut. “We have rejected your city, you have rejected what remains of ours”, resumes the director in a very free and at times musical voiceover that lends rhythm to the names of stores, street corners, cafés – a topographical memory not documented in the urbanists’ plans. Sarah Srage combines the dialogues of those who will no longer have access to the public beach and snippets of a fishing family’s holiday movies. These “broken hulls”, who find useful plants among the rocks that will soon be buried under concrete, also breed carrier pigeons and forecast the weather. While gathering their local know-how, the lyrical archivist does not forget to film the romances of the younger generation, who are still free to walk along the sinister fencing that encloses the work site, under a not-yet-privatised sun. (Charlotte Garson)