Placeless Films

Set in the early years of the Syrian war, Valley of Exile chronicles the journey of Rima and Nour, two sisters who find unexpected refuge in a makeshift settlement in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley after fleeing war-torn Damascus. Older sister Rima, who is eight months pregnant, is set on reuniting with her husband and rebuilding their lives in Lebanon, while younger sister Nour is determined to find their missing brother and eventually returns home to Syria.​ In the camp, the sisters forge alliances with other women who are similarly forced to live without the support of family they’ve lost to the war. This propels them onto separate paths. But as days in the camp turn to weeks, Rima and Nour begin to realize that their exile is not only a struggle for survival, but ultimately a test of loyalty to their country, their family and each other.

Walid and Aida, husband and wife, are reunited after Walid’s many years spent living abroad. Answers to long-hidden secrets are sought in Sarah Francis’ careful unravelling of an estranged marriage.

A poor disabled worker promises his newly wed wife to take her to dinner in a fancy hotel for her birthday. But when his bicycle gets stolen and his job threatened, he has to choose between saving his miserable job or fulfilling his promise and earning the love of his wife.

Jamal Hindawi, a 50-year-old Palestinian, lives with his family in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, where he makes political theatre. Together with a group of friends, he is working on a play that tells the story of an old jacket that symbolises the Palestinian identity. One day, after rehearsals, Jamal goes into the mountains with his friend Zreik, and on the way there he loses the jacket on a bus. A journey unfolds that takes Jamal from the mountains through Beirut, a city in radical transition, where successive crises and protests have left deep scars.

Musa lives with his father, Beko, in rural Turkey. Beko, struggling to make ends meet by assisting in rabbit-hound races, is lured by the promise of a government disability pension for Musa if he can prove his son's “disability” with a medical report. To pass as disabled, Musa must learn to mimic the mannerisms of people with physical disabilities from Nergis, a girl his age. Together, the two children form an enduring friendship as they navigate their plight.

Niam Itani, a filmmaker and former child refugee herself, attempts to reconstruct, document, and even manufacture the meaning of childhood with 9-year-old Khalil, whose family fled Syria to the same small village where Itani's family once took refuge during the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s.