Cinema
Around the Pink House
البيت الزهري
Synopsis
In post-war Beirut, which is being rebuilt, two families from the South, who fled their villages during the conflict, have been living for eleven years, without the right to, in a sumptuous pink palace near the city centre. When a developer decides to raze the house, they are threatened with eviction and fight to stay, under the gaze of a neighbourhood reporter.
Context
It is the couple's first feature-length fiction film, for which they write the screenplay; co-produced by France, Canada and Lebanon, it is spoken in French and Arabic. The film denounces corruption, speculation and the unscrupulous developers of the reconstruction, and makes the house the memory of a war that society would like to forget. Lebanon submits it to the Oscars, and it is released in France on 15 December 1999.
Who it is for
Bilingual dialogues, Arabic and French; comic scenes within a grave story, which can be followed without knowing the history of Lebanon.
Prizes and reception
First fiction film by two visual artists, winners of the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2017; shown in Montreal in 1999.
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