Works

Fiction Film
Video
74 min

Written and directed by: Lamia Joreige
Produced by: Les Films d’Ici: Serge Lalou & Patricia Cartier-Millon.
With the support of: Taymour Grahne Gallery; Young Arab Theater Fund & Musée Nicéphore Niépce

With: Tarek Atoui, Firas Beydoun, Raïa Haidar, Mireille Kassar, and Anna Ogden-Smith.

Director of Photography: Rachel Aoun
Director’s assistant: Nayla Mabsout
Editing: Wardan (Vartan Avakian)
Music: Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Sharif Sehnaoui; Tarek Atoui; Charbel Haber & Radwan Ghazi Moumneh; François Couperin  & Grigor Narekatsi (Interpreted by Mireille Kassar).

Beirut, 2011, the city remains strangely quiet, in a state of expectancy, while the region is in great turmoil. Through five characters, mainly non-professional actors, Lamia Joreige creates a unique portrayal of her native town. Whether a salesman, a musician, an artist or an actress, each one expresses their deep attachment to Beirut and inability to live there. Over several months, the director asked them to perform scenes inspired by their love affairs, professional lives, friendships and the places that are dear to them. The city and their feelings become deeply intertwined. The improvisational process and long-term filming allowed for the content to develop gradually. Constructing a fiction with their daily lives, she highlights a malaise in present day-Beirut. The sweetness of their lives conceals anxieties over political instability and the fear of conflicts as Lebanon is still marked by previous wars. The film tries to capture the intangible feeling of suspension that characterized life in Beirut then, while Syria and the region were going through upheavals.

‘And the Living is Easy’ assembles collected fragments of life. The multiple layers of reality intersect with one another, but rather than evolving according to a predefined plot leading to a dramatic resolution, the lived experience of the characters is arranged in a constructed yet open-ended narrative structure that deals with the present, the writing of history, and the unfolding of time.