Al Bilad newspaper Like love stories…a journey with three characters who represent three different Lebanese generations – 2024-03-01 16:27:42

Like love stories, it carries many messages, but the most important of them was the dream of changing the reality in which we live and holding on to our dreams despite the difficult circumstances.”
Myriam Al-Hajj says in an interview about her latest documentary film, “Like Love Stories,” which ended its showing at the Berlin International Film Festival, but the enthusiasm of the audience and critics in seminars and on the pages of international media continues, as critical praises came from various journalists and critics around the world on sites. Local and global.
In the international press, The Film Verdict critic Jay Weisberg wrote of it as “a bold documentary that traces the country’s ups and downs since 2018.”
While critic Ola Saloa wrote for Cineuropa about the film, “Three main characters who together represent the collective Lebanese identity.”
“The tripartite focus on different people, each with a different emotional connection to the ongoing protests, created an unusual but therefore more interesting perspective, foreshadowing the repetition of the past in an uncertain future,” Leda Buck wrote for MovieBreak.
“An honest and frank film, a powerful glimpse into Lebanon,” Mark van de Klaashort wrote for International CinephileSociety.

As for the Arab press, Ahmed Adly wrote to Asharq Al-Awsat: “Over the four years that the film covers, we see the stories and tales of the three characters and their transformations. While each of them is distinguished by his different vision that he sees as the most appropriate to change the Lebanese reality, but without a convergence between them, amid great discrepancy. “It reflects part of the causes of the political crisis in Lebanon.”

During the film’s world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, several media outlets, including Senoropa, interviewed the film’s director, Myriam El-Hajj, who said, “At first, I didn’t know that the country was collapsing. I only understood it later. What I did know was that I was making a film about… Three characters, at least two of whom – the two women – struggle to survive and make change, and continue to dream of that change. This is the power of the film,” she added.

In her interview with Cairo News, she added that the reason behind her enthusiasm for this experience is due to her desire to change the reality that her country is experiencing, as the film began with some optimism and then ended with a desire to call for hope and dream no matter what happens.
During its screening at the festival, the film “Like Love Stories” by director Myriam Al-Hajj enjoyed a huge reception during 5 full screenings, followed by continuous rounds of applause to celebrate the presence of the work team represented by director Myriam Al-Hajj, producers Myriam Sassine and Karen Ruszniewski, and the film’s heroes, the Lebanese journalist and political activist Joumana Haddad, and the Lebanese artist and political activist Perla Jo. Maalouli; In addition to Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, founders of the distribution company MAD Solutions. The discussion sessions that followed the screenings also witnessed a large turnout from the audience, who interacted and expressed their admiration for the film.
Screenings such as Love Stories at the Berlin Film Festival were part of the Panorama section, and the film makers have begun making arrangements for its next tours at film festivals, which will be announced according to the schedules of those festivals.
The documentary takes place in Lebanon, where the director recounts, in the form of a memoir, four turbulent years for a nation in turmoil, struggling to break free from its shackles. As the country is shaken by unrest, personal quests for meaning and survival unfold. How can we keep dreaming when the world is crumbling around us?
A film like Love Stories written and directed by Myriam El Hajj and produced by Myriam Sassine for Abbot Productions and Karen Ruszniewski for GoGoGo Films. The main characters of the film are Joumana Haddad, George Mufarrej, Perla Joe Maalouli, editing by Anita Perez, directors of photography, Jihad Saadeh, Myriam Al-Hajj, and Mohamed Siam, and soundtrack by Mark Kodsi.
Myriam Al-Hajj is a Lebanese director. Her first feature-length documentary film, Truce, premiered at the Visions of Reality Festival in Nyon, Switzerland in 2015. It was shown at many international festivals, and won many awards, the most important of which is the Special Jury Award from the International Documentary Film Festival in Agadir. A film like Love Stories is her second feature-length documentary film and is having its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section.
Myriam teaches cinema at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts. She is a member of several film committees, including the Doha Film Institute, and is also a founding member of the “Narrators – Sisters in Film” organization, a group of female filmmakers from the Arab world and expatriates.