Khamsin Films

It's autumn. A man and a woman are about to leave a restaurant situated in the heart of the Lebanese mountains. They are suprised by fighter planes screaming past at low altitude. In the distance, war seems to be breaking out once more. Losing sight of the woman, the man starts looking for her. He finds her on the other side of the mountain. Together they sink deeper into nature, which becomes increasingly spectral, just like the slender thread that ties them to each other.

Less than two weeks before shooting a movie by Cherine Dabis in the West Bank, a war break out in Gaza. For a week, the camera follows the studio crew, documenting the war’s impact on the artists and showcasing their adaptation to tough decisions amid an intensely harsh reality.

Mahdia, Tunisia. Fatma and her daughters, Najeh and Waffeh, work as “machtat”, traditional musicians who play at wedding ceremonies. Their music evokes love and its promises, but the reality is much more complex and painful. Between illusions and disillusionment, Machtat is a powerful and liberating portrait of three women asserting their voices.

Lebanon, 2019-2023: a chronicle of the uprising, its fading and its end. From collective hope to intimate pain, can cinema resist the irreversible?