Jocelyne Saab

The Razor's Edge

1985 | 102 minutes | In Arabic & French with English subtitles | New 4k Restoration

Set amid the Lebanese Civil War, Saab’s fiction feature debut centers the unlikely bond formed between Karim, a forty-something painter, and Samar, a teenager who grew up in war-torn Beirut.

“A striking meditation on humanity’s struggle in the face of unthinkable horror.”
– New York Film Festival

Read A Treasure Trove of Interviews with Saab, courtesy of Sabzian.

The Beirut Trilogy

New Restoration

Beirut, Never Again (1976)
Lebanese writer and painter Etel Adnan provides poetic voiceover for what would become the first of Saab’s “Beirut Trilogy,” in which the filmmaker follows the daily destruction of the city. Every morning between 6 and 10am, she roams around Beirut while the militias from both sides rest from their night of fighting.

Letter from Beirut (1978)
Three years after the beginning of the Civil War the filmmaker returns to her city which has irrevocably changed. An epistolary film in which Saab wanders the streets, rides the bus, chats with refugees and reflects on the war’s toll.

Beirut My City (1982)
In July 1982 the Israeli army laid siege to Beirut. Four years earlier Jocelyne Saab saw her 150-year-old childhood home go up in flames. She asked herself: when did all this begin? Every place becomes a historical site and every name a memory. Considered by Saab herself to be her most important film.