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Msaytbeh, the elevated place.

Msaytbeh, the elevated place.

المصيطبة، المكان المرتفع

Rawane Nassif | Canada | 2024 | 20' |

| IFFR 2024

After a twenty year absence, Rawane Nassif returns home in Msaytbeh, Beirut. Msaytbeh, (from the word Mastaba, the elevated place) was home to a loving and diverse neighbourhood of secular leftists. Upon her return, Rawane realises that the life and community she left behind has drastically changed.

In this personal and layered documentary, Rawane invites us into her parents’ home, destroyed by years of war. Shot on the eighteenth floor balcony, Rawane juxtaposes her childhood memories with what is left today. As ruined buildings are projected onto a destroyed bathroom wall, history seems only able to repeat itself.

– Lyse Ishimwe Nsengiyumva and Koen de Rooij

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