A Sad and Beautiful World is a Lebanese romantic drama that follows two people across three decades. It opens in US theaters today.
Cyril Aris filmed it in Beirut in summer 2024, weeks before open war broke out between Israel and Lebanon. He told Moveable Fest that his crew worked "under the constant threat of if Beirut was going to turn into another Gaza." The film asks why Lebanese people choose to stay when their country keeps collapsing. The crew was asking itself the same question in real time.
Aris spent five years writing and rewriting the script. He started in 2019, wondering whether to have children in Lebanon. The financial collapse and the 2020 port explosion kept reshaping it.
It won the Venice Days audience award in 2025. If you watch world cinema, this one belongs in your queue.
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