The central couple of the film played by Hasan Akil and Mounia Akl. (Credit: Still provided by Cyril Aris)
The synopsis is clear, as simple as a fairy tale unfolding, almost predictable. Two schoolchildren, Lebanon, and war. Nino loves Yasmine. Yasmine makes Nino dream.
Hidden in an abandoned train car, all they have to do is close their eyes to escape to a happy island. They are not happy, but they don’t know it. Reality came for them early, and brutally so.
Nino is an orphan. Yasmine’s parents are about to divorce. Both are portrayed by young actors, moving in their beauty and spontaneity. The eternal and banal suffering of childhood is spiced up with the dangers, uncertainties, and separations of war.
This is where documentarian Cyril Aris’s first feature film finds its uniqueness and power. The beautiful title, "It’s a Sad and Beautiful World," borrowed from the opening of Jim Jarmusch’s "Down By Law" (1986), sets the tone for an emotional roller coaster, from pure laughter to profound sadness.
War intrudes, directs destinies, affects relationships, and disrupts paths. As much as Nino and Yasmine, played by Hasan Akil and Mounia Akl, viewers want to believe in the possibility of that island, a refuge for displaced souls and melancholic children.
Multi-award-winning director Mounia Akl ["Submarine" (2016); "Costa Brava" (2021); and the last episodes of "House of Guinness" (2025)] rarely appears in front of the camera.
But how could she refuse to trust Cyril, who crafted this lead role for her, someone who shares his overwhelming passion for cinema? Together, they walked away from mapped-out careers — he in finance, she in architecture — to study directing at Columbia University.
Cruelty of reality in the realm of dreams
We see Nino and Yasmine as adults. He is still a dreamer, somewhat naive, clinging to illusions, and prone to becoming further entangled in problems while trying to solve them.
He runs a small restaurant under the watchful eye of his grandfather (Camille Salameh), who raised him, together with a chef and a waitress, a couple played with a blend of exasperation and tenderness by Nadyn Chalhoub and Tino Karam.
An accident brings back into his life the little girl he has never forgotten. She has not forgotten him, either. Yasmine is the opposite of Nino: a determined, organized, responsible young woman. Her lucid outlook tells her to leave the country.
Her mother, portrayed with subtlety by Julia Kassar — a top star on the Lebanese stage and screen, as is Salameh — disapproves of her daughter's growing closeness to this boy, whom she finds inconsistent.
But they will marry. They will have a child. A permanent tug-of-war between war and love will see each winning at different times.
Archive footage forces the cruelty of reality into the world of dreams. There is no final solution.
Such is Lebanon. Shots of a destroyed, frantic Beirut imprint themselves on the retina before the brain has time to register them.
Anthony Sahyoun’s music accompanies this persistent feeling. These visual and sensory shocks jolt the audience every time they settle into sentimental comfort.
A banal story? Perhaps in its plotline, but not in its substance, not in the vision offered by this director, whose documentaries — of rare intensity — have never failed to move audiences.
Notably, "The Swing and Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano." Those expecting just another movie about Lebanon, its wars, and how to survive will find something quite different.
A pack of tissues is not too much, and the coup de grâce to all the repressed emotions woven into one’s much-lauded “resilience” comes with the final dedication from Aris to his newborn son.
The baby, in fact, arrived on the very day the director received a standing ovation at the Venice festival and, simultaneously, the Audience Award at the prestigious festival’s Giornate degli Autori.
Fondation Liban Cinema, an essential supporter
Written, composed, and structured in 2019, "It’s a Sad and Beautiful World" had to survive five years of uncertainty before making it to the big screen. In the meantime, Lebanon changed and underwent further upheavals, necessitating revisions.
Considering the multiple slowdowns, interruptions, and financial challenges the film faced, it’s remarkable that it carries such emotional charge, focus, and coherence against all odds.
At a panel for the film’s Beirut premiere at Metropolis cinema, the director, partners, and producers described the process.
Among other things, it was revealed that the script went through no fewer than 120 drafts. “I understand why so few Lebanese films get made. It’s really an exercise in patience, and you need to find the motivation to keep going, to write and rewrite, all while funding comes in dribs and drabs. But that’s how it is, I’m passionate about my work, and I’m supported by a great team, which helps a lot. Ultimately, as Lebanese, we have so many stories to tell!” said Aris.
The director benefited from a weeklong screenwriting workshop led by experts Antoine Waked and Nathalie Negroni, which focused on films in early development and was funded by the Fondation Liban Cinema (FLC).
The FLC also received a 75,000 euro grant from the European Union, which it distributed among six films, including Aris’s, which received a 10,000 euro envelope.
Supporting networking for Lebanese filmmakers, the FLC, a partner of the Francophone Meetings in Brussels, selected Aris to participate.
Finally, the foundation provided for a two-month artist residency at the Cité des Arts in partnership with the Paris city government.
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour.
