Jocelyne Saab (1948–2019) was one of the most multifaceted filmmakers of her generation. Belonging both to the world of journalism and to the second wave of Arab feminists, for whom visibility and language both functioned as “poetic testimony” more than narration, Saab dedicated approximately fifteen documentaries to the subject of the civil war in Lebanon (1975–1990): New Crusader in the Orient, 1975; Lebanon in Turmoil, 1975; Children of War, 1976; South Lebanon, History of a Sieged Village, 1976; Beirut, Never Again, 1976; For a Few Lives, 1976; Letter From Beirut, 1978; Beirut, My City, 1982; The Lebanese, Hostages of their City, 1982; The Ship of Exile, 1982; Lebanon, State of Shock, 1982; The Woman Killer, 1988; as well as one fiction film: A Suspended Life, 1985.

Saab became a reporter and television presenter after studying political economy in her own city of Beirut and in Paris, before the war; and turned defiantly to independent filmmaking and the construction of images in Beirut when the war began in 1975. Attuned, like her friend and collaborator Etel Adnan, to different tools of bearing witness, Saab created her own documentary of dissidence and solidarity. Alongside the long-neglected and mostly undistributed work of Heiny Srour, Assia Djebar, Mai Masri, Atteyat Al-Abnoudy, and other female filmmakers of the Maghreb and Mediterranean Arab region, Saab’s oeuvre clears a path for artistic representation in times of ongoing, overwhelming emotion and unholy Israeli occupation and land-seizure. 

Over the course of two nights, Dec. 18–19, Rotations presents THE GROUNDBREAKING JOCELYNE SAAB, a program screening at Now Instant Image Hall in Los Angeles. Featuring all three documentaries in Saab’s THE BEIRUT TRILOGY (1976, ‘78, ‘82) as well as her narrative feature A SUSPENDED LIFE (1985)—accompanied by TRACES (2023), a new, stunning film from Lebanese–Canadian experimental filmmaker and archivist Chantal Partamian—we hope to cast light on the realities of a region that once had to throw its already multilingual artists and writers, “like a destroyed building,” in all directions (EA).

With gratitude to Association Jocelyne Saab and Mathilde Rouxel.

Samar is a young girl born during the war. Forced to live as a nomad, she grows up among fighters, learning to live in a country at war. The daily challenges she faces in life contrast with her love of Egyptian romantic comedies. One day, a chance meeting with Karim brings these two parts of her life together. A love story at the heart of a war. (MR)

Full Credits:
Director: Jocelyne Saab, Script: Gérard Brach, Translation: Tahar Ben Jelloun, DOP: Claude La Rue, Music: Siegfried Kessler, Actors: Jacques Weber, Hala Bassam, Juliet Berto, Production: Balcon Productions, Copyright: Nessim Ricardou-Saab.

Beirut 1980: Amid the rubble of a torn building, a reel of pornographic film. An unlikely unraveling of queer bodies writes sensuality into the war-torn city, its glitching masculinity. “What if,” asks Partamian upon finding the footage, “we bring it to life, as if the disintegrated lives of queer women that were meant to stay unseen or disfigured or left to rot slowly … assert their presence within the context of the 80s in Lebanon, a period so overtly represented by war and violence and from which all narrative about personal lives and intimacy is removed?”

Please note: seating is limited. Box Office opens thirty minutes prior to the listed showtime. Online ticket sales will be honored up until 15 minutes after the scheduled showtime. In-store ticket purchases are subject to availability, first-come, first-served. We do not operate a standby list.