Home
Films
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

Also in this combined programme

Ojitos mentirosos

Elena Duque eulogises the magic of film with architecture and the unique texture of 8mm.
Short & Mid-length
Descent

A possibility for reclamation as London’s rapidly changing skyline is abstracted and freefalling on 16mm.
Short & Mid-length
Keep Looking

A young filmmaker crosses the pond to hunt down film financing in the Big Apple.
Short & Mid-length
Materia vibrante

The intersection of architecture and landscape; the intersection of structures and sculptures; the intersections themselves.
Short & Mid-length
Flux

A visual poem about changing states, we move along from liquid to ice, to gas.
Short & Mid-length