Maroun Returns to Beirut
Feyrouz Serhal
Lebanon, Qatar. 2024. 125 min

2023 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Maroun Baghdadi’s sudden and tragic death. Maroun was a Lebanese filmmaker who wrote and directed films during the Lebanese civil war and contributed to documentary and fiction filmmaking from 1973 up until his death in 1993. In this film, Feyrouz Serhal embarks on a day trip in Beirut and navigates the city that profoundly shaped Maroun’s journey in life and cinema. Here she encounters individuals who were close to him and who shared his experiences. And as she traverses Maroun’s life and career, the social and political backdrop moves to the foreground. The film reflects on the last fifty years of the history of the country from a present standpoint. Through Maroun’s story, we perceive how cinema can, beautifully and dramatically, portray our stories and discourse our life events.

What will People Say
Rafina Khatun
India. 2024. 40 min

Gulnaaz remains committed to using community radio to shed light on injustices and oppressions faced by marginalised communities, despite constant scrutiny and control by her family and community. Through her empathetic storytelling, she brings attention to untold narratives and advocates for unity and harmony. Amidst her fight for social change, Gulnaaz grapples with her own struggles for freedom and autonomy. This is the story of a young Muslim woman dreaming differently in a patriarchal society determined to silence her.

The Forest in Me
Rebecca E. Marshall
UK. 2024. 69 min

Epic forests of the Siberian Taiga and black lava landscapes of a Hawaiian volcano are woven through this quietly powerful film that opens out from a personal story about living with uncertainty, to reflect upon possibilities of love and human connection.
In an intimate letter to her young child, the filmmaker builds connections between Agafya Lykova, an elderly woman surviving alone in the Siberian forest since her birth, who scares bears away by banging on space-rocket debris, a crew in Hawaii simulating what isolated life could be on Mars and her young child discovering the world minute by minute. This endlessly surprising journey offers up images that shake ideas of past, present and future to form a deeply tender vision of humanity and timeless survival on planet Earth.

Cinema Pe Cinema
Vani Subramanian
India. 2024. 63 min

For some of us, India’s single screen cinemas are a glorious architectural and cultural legacy to be celebrated, preserved and cherished. For others, they remain a place still frequented to see the movies. Yet others lament their widespread demise, remembering how within their crumbling edifices, the magic of the movies was first encountered, that thrill of being transported to worlds beyond our imagination experienced, or a lasting connection discovered with what was unfolding on the screen.