Abbout Productions

Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

Beirut, at night. Said begins his first shift as a security guard. His orders are clear: watch a bridge. However, in the heart of “the city that never dies”, the exercise is going to be more complicated than it seems.

A hot summer's day in the Gaza Strip. Today the electricity is on. Christine’s beauty salon is heaving with female clients: a bride-to-be, a pregnant woman, a bitter divorcée, a devout woman and a pill-popping addict. But their day of leisure is disrupted when gunfire breaks out across the street. A gangland family has stolen the lion from Gaza’s only zoo, and Hamas has decided it’s time to settle old scores. Stuck in the salon, with the prospect of death drawing ever nearer, the women start to unravel. How will the day end? Will they lose their lives for the sake of “liberating the lion”?

In 2011 Tunisia, as the Arab Spring awakens, unemployed graduate Aziz, nicknamed Zizou (Zied Ayadi), travels from his Saharan village to the big city of Tunis in search of a job. From television aerial installation to political intrigue, this fresh-faced young Candide will learn the ways of the world, fall in love with the ravishing Aicha (Sara Hanachi), and become famous.--Eddie Cockrell, FilmFest DC

July 2006. Another war breaks out in Lebanon. The directors decide to follow a movie star, Catherine Deneuve and a friend, actor and artist Rabih Mroue;, on the roads of South Lebanon. Together, they will drive through the regions devastated by the conflict. It is the beginning of an unpredictable, unexpected adventure...

Susan, a 65 year old impoverished widow living in Beirut, meets Osman, a young Sudanese immigrant worker without papers. They instantly fall in love, much to the scandal of everyone around them.

Each morning Beirut awakens to a new murder seemingly committed by a serial killer, with victims found emptied of their blood. At the same time a doctor, Khalil, begins to experience strange symptoms that destabilise him and transform his life. A connection slowly emerges that seems to link Khalil to these victims. Salhab’s body of films have come to narrate the state of Lebanon – and Beirut in particular – during and after the civil war, and this film is no exception.

Strange and life-threatening events in a construction site create tension between the Syrian workers and the Lebanese villagers. Tarek, one of the workers, becomes convinced that the site is haunted.

In 1970s Greece, two young women free a military raid and take sanctuary in a mysterious convent.

On the eve of an invasion in 1982 Lebanon, an 11-year-old boy at a mountain school is determined to express his feelings to a classmate. As tension builds across the country, the day takes an unexpected turn, reflecting the fragile line between innocence and conflict. Through a child's eyes, the film explores the impact of war, the power of love, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Members of a family quit the polluted, rubbish-strewn city of Beirut for an idyllic mountain home. However, their dreams of a utopian existence are shattered by the construction of a landfill on the boundary of their land.

Beirut, on an autumn day. The city is on the edge of chaos, but for Maya, Tarek, Yasmina and Rami, aged between 17 and 22 years old, it is just an ordinary day during which they question themselves about sex, love and night time hanging out.

Suzanne and Osmane meet in crisis-ridden Beirut. Osmane is a young Sudanese man without papers, searching for a better future; Suzanne is a widow with Palestinian roots more than twice his age. Against all odds, they fall in love.

After surviving a car crash in the middle of Lebanon's isolated Beqaa Valley, an amnesiac man finds himself held hostage on a local farm that doubles as an illegal drug-production facility.

Nabil returns to Beirut with the ashes of his father who died abroad. He tries to overcome his bereavement while his family insists on respecting rites and customs by burying a non-existent corpse.

On August 4th, 2020, the catastrophic explosion at the port of Beirut leaves a large part of the Lebanese capital in ruins. In the midst of the chaos, a troubled film crew face an overwhelming decision: to continue the production of their movie or abandon it? As they face the aftermath of the catastrophe, they are torn between their firm belief in the transformative power of cinema and a deep sense of cynicism about its ability to effect change in a nation plagued by economic turmoil and societal collapse. Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano chronicles their struggles and highlights the crew's resilience as they strive to find meaning and purpose in their work amidst the devastation.

In 1976 Beirut, after a rendezvous with her old flame, soon-to-wed Noha witnesses a violent incident and changes course on a path to self-realization.

Lebanon's brief flirtation with space travel in the 1960s becomes a poignant metaphor for the Arab world's utopian dreams in this riveting documentary.

Lebanon, July 2006. War is raging between Hezbollah and Israel. During a 24h ceasefire, Marwan heads out in search of his father who refused to leave his Southern village. As the ceasefire is quickly broken, Marwan finds himself under the rain of bombs and takes shelter in a house with a group of elders. Suddenly, a group of Israeli soldiers enter the first floor. Trapped in the house and hostages of their own fears, the next three days will see the situation spiral out of control.

Nowadays, Beirut is often deprived of electricity. It is not a one-time accident but a new state. In the national museum, visitors find themselves in darkness and use their phones to light the traces of past civilizations as their world crumbles.