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An Apartment in Beirut

Short documentary, 2004, 28 min.

Charlotte Asseily is an eighty-seven-year-old widow, with grey hair and a pair of black-rimmed glasses on a wrinkled face. Almost every day, she arrives at her fabric shop in Beirut at nine o'clock. She used to live on the top floor of the building, which was built by her husband. Now it belongs to her son, who explains his wedding party in 1969 was disrupted by fights between the Lebanese army and Palestinian troops. That was why his parents stayed temporarily in London in the mid-seventies. Shots of his mother's old face contrast with pictures from the past, of her and her family. The soundtrack combines snippets of street sounds, music and composed sounds. Street scenes show present-day Lebanon (which is still ravaged). Mrs. Asseily shows an album with old black-and-white photos of her apartment. The son shows us round the deserted and decrepit apartment. As long as his mother is alive, he will not alter it. Since her return to Lebanon, she has not been inside anymore. Until now.

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