Michèle Tyan

With EMBERS, Tamara Stepanyan’s first feature-length documentary, the director seeks to honour the memory of her late grandmother, whom she was named after. Stepanyan visits the elder Tamara’s hometown in Armenia, where she spends time with her grandmother’s circle of friends, who discuss their memories of daily life with Tamara, bringing to light their ideological and political viewpoints in the process. As the conversations progress, a dialogue emerges between past and present – between the Tamara of today and the Tamara of two generations ago, whose life was shaped by her experiences during World War II. Despite the absence of the film’s central subject, her presence is deeply felt through her impact on those who survived her. Stepanyan’s mourning the loss of someone close to her heart is acutely apparent; here, she faces down that sorrow with a bright tribute to a wonderful woman.

18 Lebanese filmmakers, driven by the ongoing war in Gaza, transform their personal letters of turmoil into a series of powerful short films, unaware that their own country is on the brink of facing a similar tragic fate.

Fifty-five-year-old Nayla is a supervisor at a factory in a Beirut suburb, and struggles to ensure her family’s survival. The war in the south of the country threatens to spill over at any moment, in a country plagued by an economic collapse. Her unemployed, alcoholic husband Mounir, an ex-Civil War militiaman, spends his time watching television. The couple’s feeling of unease fluctuates between aggression and guilt. One night, their twenty-three-year-old daughter Rania knocks over a man while driving home. Nayla is caught up in a vicious circle: She finds herself with Rania, in hospital, facing a family from “the other side.” Animosity and curiosity alternate. For the first time in a long while, Nayla does some deep soul-searching. Her relationship with her husband worsens. But the injured man's condition suddenly deteriorates and he dies. Rania is taken to prison.

Two young girls of the war generation, Yasmin and Leila, are in search of Beirut. When they meet an elderly film enthusiast with a secret store of Lebanese films, they persuade him to screen his collection for them. So begins an initiation into the myths and images of Beirut, but the girls want cold figures and facts, war babies indifferent to the memories evoked.

With EMBERS, Tamara Stepanyan’s first feature-length documentary, the director seeks to honour the memory of her late grandmother, whom she was named after. Stepanyan visits the elder Tamara’s hometown in Armenia, where she spends time with her grandmother’s circle of friends, who discuss their memories of daily life with Tamara, bringing to light their ideological and political viewpoints in the process. As the conversations progress, a dialogue emerges between past and present – between the Tamara of today and the Tamara of two generations ago, whose life was shaped by her experiences during World War II. Despite the absence of the film’s central subject, her presence is deeply felt through her impact on those who survived her. Stepanyan’s mourning the loss of someone close to her heart is acutely apparent; here, she faces down that sorrow with a bright tribute to a wonderful woman.

18 Lebanese filmmakers, driven by the ongoing war in Gaza, transform their personal letters of turmoil into a series of powerful short films, unaware that their own country is on the brink of facing a similar tragic fate.

Fifty-five-year-old Nayla is a supervisor at a factory in a Beirut suburb, and struggles to ensure her family’s survival. The war in the south of the country threatens to spill over at any moment, in a country plagued by an economic collapse. Her unemployed, alcoholic husband Mounir, an ex-Civil War militiaman, spends his time watching television. The couple’s feeling of unease fluctuates between aggression and guilt. One night, their twenty-three-year-old daughter Rania knocks over a man while driving home. Nayla is caught up in a vicious circle: She finds herself with Rania, in hospital, facing a family from “the other side.” Animosity and curiosity alternate. For the first time in a long while, Nayla does some deep soul-searching. Her relationship with her husband worsens. But the injured man's condition suddenly deteriorates and he dies. Rania is taken to prison.