SKIES OF LEBANON: On Finding and Losing a Homeland
Chloé Mazlo’s Skies of Lebanon (2020) travelled to several film festivals after its premiere at Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week. I was lucky enough to see the film right after Cannes because it was selected for the Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival that I am working at. Fortunately, the film is now included in the Mubi International selection after the festival tours.
Throughout the film, we follow the story of Alice (Alba Rohrwacher), who does not feel like she belongs to Switzerland, where she was born and grew up, and later finds her home in Lebanon. Alice starts working for a family in Beirut as a nanny to run away from the tiny Swiss village where she was living. She meets the young astrophysicist Joseph (Wajdi Mouawad), who is dedicated to sending the first Lebanese national into space. They fall in love quickly, and even though Alice’s parents ask her not to, they marry and build their home in Beirut. Their beautiful life, which began in…
