“Jamais vu is the opposite of déjà vu, a place which seems known appears strange, unknown and new. A scenery which seems familiar appears alienated, she heard.”
An essay about Lebanon (mainly) and Germany (also), about coastlines and plants like the marsh samphire, the milk thistle, the angel trumpet or the crimson bottlebrush. About adaptation and transformation as well as resistance, about changes desired and dreaded, the city of Beirut and its unexpected revelations, modernism and time passing by, and, of course, the hopes and fears of its inhabitants, many of whom sense that their future might wait for them across the sea, even if they don’t want to leave.
All of this is presented in a wonderful collage-like narrative style that mixes and integrates different materials and techniques, as if to illustrate the following observation: “The microbiologist and evolution scientist Lynn Margulis developed in the 1960s the theory that evolution is mostly based on symbiosis and cooperation between organisms. She was a strong opponent of Darwin and his survival of the fittest theory. What she was observing in her field of microbiology strongly supports her alternative theory of evolution.”
– Olaf Möller
Film details
- Countries of production
- Germany, Lebanon
- Year
- 2023
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2023
- Length
- 64"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
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