SKIES OF LEBANON
In this whimsical debut, a Swiss expatriate strikes up a storybook romance in 1950s Lebanon only to witness the country’s civil war, challenging her new family and spirit.
Not all’s fair in love and war in French-Lebanese Co-Writer/Director Chloé Mazlo’s strikingly off-beat and playful romance SKIES OF LEBANON. The bustling metropolis of Beirut in the 1950s offers sweet, young Alice (Alba Rohrwacher) a chance to escape her overbearing parents and rural Swiss upbringing—a prologue comically told through stop-motion animation. After her frequent visits to a cafe catches the eye of the admiring astrophysicist Joseph (Wajdi Mouawad), the lovers’ fates are all but certain. Yet as the years go by, her idealism, love, and dedication to her new home and family are drowned out by the increasingly alarming reports of revolution in the streets. As many flee the country, Alice must keep her family together because she knows there is no going back. Mazlo creates an unforgettable romantic adult fairy tale grounded in a tumultuous reality, at times reminiscent of the acerbic absurdity found in Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend and the colorful worlds of Jacques Demy and Wes Anderson, yet still entirely her own.
CAST: Alba Rohrwacher, Wajdi Mouawad, Isabelle Zighondi, Odette Makhlouf
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