Shot over the last four years, as Lebanon has faced an interrupted revolution, a pandemic, an unprecedented financial crisis and the devastating explosion that destroyed half of Beirut, Diaries from Lebanon shows the country’s struggle to escape the vice-grip of warlords through the eyes of its people. Feminist Joumana Haddad, a leading figure of civil society, comes within an inch of winning the 2018 parliamentary elections, but is defeated by corruption. Perla Joe Maalouli, a young activist unable to find her place in society, suddenly becomes the face of the 2019 revolution as citizens demand electricity, water and the dissolution of the government. Meanwhile, Georges Moufarej, a veteran of the Lebanese Civil War, is thoroughly convinced he can still save the nation. Moufarej is a symbol of the past; Haddad, the present; and Maalouli the future in this diary of dissent in which civilians using memory as a tool of empowerment are agents of change from within.
Myriam El Hajj is a Lebanese filmmaker whose first feature documentary A TIME TO REST premiered at Visions du Réel-Nyon in 2015 and screened at several international festivals, winning multiple awards.
Her second feature documentary DIARIES FROM LEBANON world premiered at the Berlinale’s Panorama section.
Additionally, Myriam teaches Cinema at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts. She’s a member of several film commissions, including the CNC and she’s a founding member of Rawiyat-Sisters in Film — a collective of women filmmakers from the Arab world and the diaspora.