FILM SCREENING: Lebanon/War, dir. Rania Stephan, Lebanon 2006, 47 min., Arabic with English subtitles
Memories for a Private Eye #1, dir. Rania Stephan, Lebanon 2015, 32 min., Arabic with English subtitles

This double-bill of works by Beirut-based artist Rania Stephan approaches many of the questions raised in her new film In Fields of Words: Conversations with Samar Yazbek, but here the focus is on Stephan’s native Lebanon and the methods employed are at once more personal and more experimental. In Lebanon/War, the filmmaker constructs a multi-faceted picture of Beirut under siege in 2006 from eight vignettes informally shot in eight different situations born of the conflict: workers, mothers, children, surviving and resisting among the rubble of a devastated city. At first glance more playful and conceptual, Memories for a Private Eye #1 mixes cinephile reminiscences of Otto Preminger’s Laura with public archives and home movies to delve into Stephan’s very personal recollections of the Lebanese civil war and its tragic consequences for her family.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Rania Stephan.