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West Beruit
 
 

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WEST BERUIT


Directed by | Ziad Doueiri

Genre fiction  |  Length: 105mins  |  Year of production: 1998


This directorial debut from Tarantino cameraman, Doueiri is a semiautobiographical account of his childhood in Lebanon during the civil war. The film features superb performances from a young cast whose characters explore warravaged Beirut with their Super 8 camera, bearing witness to the increasingly brutal war from a youthful, naive and exuberant perspective. Doueiri has said that �during the first years of the civil war, despite the anxiety that I could sense in my parents, I was incapable of feeling it myself�I wasn't born with fear I acquired it.' His beautifully shot film offers an account of the process by which excitement and freedom was turned into fear and exile.

Winner � FIPRESCI Award Toronto International Film Festival, 1998
Best First Film Award Carthage Film Festival, 1998