The Camelia Committee

The inhabitants of a city awake one morning to find that never-before-seen trees, plants, and flowers suddenly erupted throughout the streets and in the squares. Strange and mysterious events start taking place as Camelia and Nahla investigate the origins of these new and peculiar creatures.

A letter from Beirut. Spring 2020.

You are now in the main hall of the National Museum in Beirut. A guard reminds you that you are encouraged to touch the archeological objects. A voice in your headset suggests that you lick the stone. You are now facing a hole in the wall on the lower left corner of a mosaic. The voice in your headset indicates that it was made by a sniper. Out of curiosity, you dial 1-9-9-1 to listen to the rest of the story.

In this experimental short video, filmmaker Nour Ouayda takes viewers on a walk towards Beirut’s seaside. Her camera is oriented toward the city’s texture, light, and colors, zooming in on the mundane details as if unable to see the city as a whole or at once.

Images filmed on the coast of Beirut, of sand, rocks, boats, buildings, people, light, water; still images, in motion, with different degrees of grain. Reflections on the filming process, the strange synthesis of the camera and what is placed before it, the object transformed by the camera into texture, abstraction, appearance.

Like every night, the sun is setting over Beirut. Nour leaves her home to join friends gathered in an apartment. As the last rays of light disappear in the sky, layers of sounds echoing traces of past events every night in the accumulate atmosphere. But tonight seems to be different. Different characters have been complaining about a pervasive migraine. Others have noticed a persistent whirring sound looming over the city. The sonic scape gradually turns into a strident sound. Time seems to suddenly dilate. The night is prolonged, slowly turning into an eternal night. Mira Adoumier

A woman arrives in Lebanon in search of a missing man, whom she met in Iceland a few years ago. Here, the buildings and landscapes still bear the traces of past conflicts, and the missing friend's absence is haunting the deserted and labyrinthine streets of Beirut. The siren song of the sea draws her to the south, towards Earth's mystical centre.