Abbout Productions

Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.

Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

Each morning Beirut awakens to a new murder seemingly committed by a serial killer, with victims found emptied of their blood. At the same time a doctor, Khalil, begins to experience strange symptoms that destabilise him and transform his life. A connection slowly emerges that seems to link Khalil to these victims. Salhab’s body of films have come to narrate the state of Lebanon – and Beirut in particular – during and after the civil war, and this film is no exception.

On August 4th, 2020, the catastrophic explosion at the port of Beirut leaves a large part of the Lebanese capital in ruins. In the midst of the chaos, a troubled film crew face an overwhelming decision: to continue the production of their movie or abandon it? As they face the aftermath of the catastrophe, they are torn between their firm belief in the transformative power of cinema and a deep sense of cynicism about its ability to effect change in a nation plagued by economic turmoil and societal collapse. Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano chronicles their struggles and highlights the crew's resilience as they strive to find meaning and purpose in their work amidst the devastation.

Members of a family quit the polluted, rubbish-strewn city of Beirut for an idyllic mountain home. However, their dreams of a utopian existence are shattered by the construction of a landfill on the boundary of their land.

Lebanon's brief flirtation with space travel in the 1960s becomes a poignant metaphor for the Arab world's utopian dreams in this riveting documentary.

In 1976 Beirut, after a rendezvous with her old flame, soon-to-wed Noha witnesses a violent incident and changes course on a path to self-realization.

A hot summer's day in the Gaza Strip. Today the electricity is on. Christine’s beauty salon is heaving with female clients: a bride-to-be, a pregnant woman, a bitter divorcée, a devout woman and a pill-popping addict. But their day of leisure is disrupted when gunfire breaks out across the street. A gangland family has stolen the lion from Gaza’s only zoo, and Hamas has decided it’s time to settle old scores. Stuck in the salon, with the prospect of death drawing ever nearer, the women start to unravel. How will the day end? Will they lose their lives for the sake of “liberating the lion”?

Susan, a 65 year old impoverished widow living in Beirut, meets Osman, a young Sudanese immigrant worker without papers. They instantly fall in love, much to the scandal of everyone around them.

"1982" is a life-affirming coming-of-age tale set at an idyllic school in Lebanon’s mountains on the eve of a looming invasion. It unfolds over a single day and follows an 11-year-old boy’s relentless quest to profess his love to a girl in his class. As the invasion encroaches on Beirut, it upends the day, threatening the entire country and its cohesion. Within the microcosm of the school, the film draws a harrowing portrait of a society torn between its desire for love and peace and the ideological schisms unraveling its seams. In his debut feature, director Oualid Mouaness delivers an ode to innocence in which he revisits one of the most cataclysmic moments in Lebanon's history through the lens of a child and his vibrant imagination. The film demonstrates the complexities of love and war, and the resilience of the human spirit.

In 2011 Tunisia, as the Arab Spring awakens, unemployed graduate Aziz, nicknamed Zizou (Zied Ayadi), travels from his Saharan village to the big city of Tunis in search of a job. From television aerial installation to political intrigue, this fresh-faced young Candide will learn the ways of the world, fall in love with the ravishing Aicha (Sara Hanachi), and become famous.--Eddie Cockrell, FilmFest DC

The Sabra and Shatila quarters are part of the Lebanese capital Beirut, which was rocked by a violent explosion in 2020, plunging Lebanon into the worst economic crisis in its history. In the poor districts, once provisionally built for Palestinian refugees, the residents live at a subsistence level without papers, without civil rights, without prospects. The documentary weaves the stories of the three families Kujeyje, Daher, Abeed and that of the young father Aboodi Ziani into a searing portrait of life in a city on the brink. The filmmakers accompanied their protagonists over a four-year period between 2018 and 2022 and show how the poorest of the poor firsthand felt the consequences of the gigantic port explosion, Lebanon's historic economic crisis, the corona pandemic and the ever-growing refugee quota. But unmistakable qualities like resilience and hope allow them to survive.

A Certain Nasser is the compelling journey of ninety years old Lebanese filmmaker, Georges Nasser, an idealist who couldn't adapt to his country's failing system but whose eyes still light up at the mention of his greatest love, Cinema.

A quintet is an omnibus feature told from the perspective of five international up and coming filmmakers who are searching to find identity in the modern world. The five segments are : "Polaroid" by Roberto Cuzzillo; "Friend Request" by Elie Lamah; "The Cuddle Workshop" by Mauro Mueller; "The House in the Envelope" by Sanela Salketic; and "The Tourist" by Ariel Shaban.

Dans les années 70 Bruno Caprice a connu un succès éphémère avec "Quand tu t'en vas", son premier et unique 45 tours. Aujourd'hui oublié, il gagne sa vie comme réceptionniste dans un grand hôtel parisien. Mais un coup de fil inattendu va changer le cours de sa vie...

Rabih, a young blind man, lives in a small village in Lebanon. He sings in a choir and edits Braille documents for an income. His life unravels when he tries to apply for a passport and discovers that his identification card, which he has carried his entire life, is fake. Now he must travel across Lebanon in search of his identity.

July 2006. Another war breaks out in Lebanon. The directors decide to follow a movie star, Catherine Deneuve and a friend, actor and artist Rabih Mroue;, on the roads of South Lebanon. Together, they will drive through the regions devastated by the conflict. It is the beginning of an unpredictable, unexpected adventure...

Beirut, at night. Said begins his first shift as a security guard. His orders are clear: watch a bridge. However, in the heart of “the city that never dies”, the exercise is going to be more complicated than it seems.

Amal is 14 years old when she ends up on Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, after the death of her boyfriend in the Port Said Stadium riot. During the protests, she is beaten by police and dragged across the square by her hair. This coming-of-age film follows her over the years after the revolution. As the film cuts between the unfolding current events and Amal’s rapidly changing life and appearance, we see her searching for her own identity in a country in transition. Amal is fiery and fearless, sinking her teeth into the protests and constantly lecturing her mother, who works as a judge. A girl among men, she also has to fight for respect and the right to take part, both in the street and in the rest of her life. In Egypt, even for a young woman like Amal—her name means "hope"—the choices open to her for her future are limited.

Jamil and Milad are brothers with very different personalities. Jamil is a get-up-and-go carpenter, following in his father's footsteps. Milad is a sensitive trumpeter and dreamer. As their home country, Syria, sinks further into war, Jamil emigrates first to Beirut and then makes an illegal journey to Sweden. Milad stays in Damascus, but eventually can’t take it any longer and decides to leave to Berlin. Their cousin Wissam records their journey for over five years, bringing back childhood memories while questioning the true meaning of home. The traumatic war in Syria plays a background role in this documentary, which focuses more on the psychological effects of being uprooted and the way the brothers, who had previously hardly travelled, deal with emigration. It draws with humility and admiration the human ability to cope with change, as radical as it can be. Jamil and Milad are achievers, each adapting his own way.