The poster for Feyrouz Serhal's film “Et Maroun revint à Beyrouth” ("And Maroun Returned to Beirut"), in competition at the 81st Venice Film Festival on Sept. 7. (Rights reserved)
"Wa Ada Maroun Ila Beirut" ("And Maroun Returned to Beirut.") The “And” in the new documentary's title is a ball of anguish that hints at the hesitations that precede it and the fatality that follows: A conjunction that heralds a disjunction. “It's a film about the director Maroun Baghdadi, about Beirut, about cinema and our perception of the way it describes our stories and narrates the events of our lives,” summed up Lebanese director and documentary filmmaker Feyrouz Serhal, who wrote and directed this film, which will be shown at the 81st Venice Film Festival on Sept. 7.
Making films in the midst of civil war
Produced by Al Jazeera Documentary and Road2films, this film is a cross between documentary and nostalgia. It takes us on a one-day stroll through Beirut, the city that profoundly influenced the life and cinematic approach of director Maroun Baghdadi from 1973 to 1993. The 30th anniversary of Baghdadi's death is being commemorated this year. We meet people who shared his experience at close quarters. As the camera moves between Baghdadi's life and his career, the social and political context of Beirut comes to the fore. The film embraces, from the point of view of the present, 50 years of history.
An image from the film showing a portrait of the late filmmaker. (Credit: Screenshot from the film)
The man who radically changed the public perception of Lebanese cinema in the midst of the civil war is a source of unexpected inspiration for the young director. One day, she was approached by producer Cynthia Choucair: “How would you like to make a film about Maroun Baghdadi?” Making a film about a film director? The idea was tempting, but required some thought.
Feyrouz Serhal decided that it would give her the opportunity to get to know the man who showed a whole generation that it was possible to make something other than commercial romances from Lebanon. She said yes, and immersed herself in Baghdadi's world, watching his films over and over again.
Beirut obsession
The first thing that caught her eye, she said, was the importance of Beirut in Baghdadi's cinematic universe. She then thought that she should take him back there, 30 years later, and offer him the pleasure of meeting up with his old pals.
Thus began her conception of the film, with the obsession of finding not only people for whom he represents an icon, but also others capable of showing the difficulties represented by the city in general and cinema in Lebanon in particular.
She focuses in particular on Joseph Samaha's book, "Destiny, not Destiny, "on the ethics of the Second Republic. The journalist and left-wing intellectual, who was a friend of Baghdadi's, recounts the tragic death of the filmmaker — who fell in the stairwell of his apartment building due to a power failure — against the backdrop of Lebanon's 1990s.
The meeting as apotheosis
The filmmaker then relies on writer Hassan Daoud to describe the character, before moving the camera, with cinematographer Elie Adabachi, to aspects of Baghdadi's practice on set. Two women stand out among this tribe of men: Dancer and choreographer Soraya Baghdadi, wife of the director, and filmmaker and conceptual artist Joanna Hadjithomas.
The film ends with a meeting between all these witnesses, among whom a peaceful conversation unfolds, each one speaking in turn with the certainty of being heard and listened to, the debate opening up on the prospects for Lebanese cinema and proposed solutions. The unimaginable difficulties encountered by Baghdadi during the period in which he made his films emerge, between the compromises he had to make and the relationships he had to maintain to be allowed to pursue his art.
As for the choice of locations, Serhal noted that Baghdadi's locations are her own, and that in each place filmed by the director, she herself has memories that are dear to her. In addition to their shared passion for cinema, she and Maroun share an unconditional love for Beirut, as already shown in their film "Tshweesh," which won an award at the Locarno Film Festival in 2017.
For her documentary on Maroun Baghdadi, the young director gathered testimonies from those who knew him up close. (Credit: Screenshot from the film)
"Wa Ada Maroun Ila Beirut," shortlisted for the Venice Film Festival 2024, gave Serhal the opportunity to compare two generations, two divergent ways of seeing the world and of making cinema. But when she watched this film for the umpteenth time, an emotion overwhelmed her, with the impression that Baghdadi has never left her side.
FRAMEWORK: Feyrouz Serhal, business card
Feyrouz Serhal graduated from Goldsmith College University in London in 2009 with a Master's degree in cinema, and has already made seven films, including shorts, documentaries and docu-dramas, such as "Tshweesh," which won a prize at Locarno in 2017, and "I Come from the Sea (2023)," which won a prize at the Shanghai International Film Festival.
