Borhane Alaouié

The class struggle between loving the poor, or asking yourself an excuse to be selfish for trying to live a luxury life.

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After “Letter From a Time of Exile”, the director is back in Lebanon where he discovers that his dreams about his country are an illusion and that the exile in your homeland is by far the worst exile. Programmer's Note: Borhane Alaouié returns to Beirut from his exile. His documentary film constitutes a new letter at the start of the 21st century in reply to the letters of the 1980s. The reconstruction process appears to affect stones more than people.

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The second Gulf War from 1990 to 1991 represents in the collective Arab memory a turning point in regards to the Arab nationalism’s self-perception as well as a moment of deep historical and existential insecurity. Five Arab directors discuss the events from their personal perspective.

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This is Egypt and one of its symbols, Sad Al-Ali, the massive wonder that is the high dam of Aswan. With a first-person narrative in a soft, husky voice, the film explores the memory of the Nile Valley to tell the story of Lake Nasser and the ecological and human consequences of this construction. Floods caused by the Ethiopian rains spread the silt and evacuated the algae. The order of nature was disrupted, the salt rose and cracked the earth, the crops burned. Sea water reached the water tables. The Nubians fled the valley engulfed by the waters, leaving behind their villages and their culture. Twenty-five years after the construction of the dam, there is no longer any coherence between the lower valley and the Nile. The city of Cairo has expanded, a heterogeneous development where human pollution overflows. The film is a bitter reflection on a lost human philosophy, a dialogue constantly renewed with the land and its river.

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