Jocelyne Saab, hors frontières

Known for her tireless documentary coverage of the Lebanese civil war from 1974 to 1982, Jocelyne Saab did not stop at her country's borders. Educated in pan-Arab ideology by her father, she belongs to a generation shaped by the independence struggles of the post-World War II era. While the voices of oppressed peoples continued to be heard, and the progressive pro-Palestinian struggle in Lebanon suffered setbacks in the conflict that was tearing the country apart, Saab set off to document other struggles. First, in Egypt, which she already knew well and where she set off to document the aftermath of the bread revolt of January 1977, which led Sadat's government to back down in the face of popular anger. Then to the Western Sahara, where a year earlier, members of the Polisario Front had declared independence for the Sahrawi Republic. In 1981, two years after the revolution, she went to Iran to document the evolution of the country and its mentalities. When she left Lebanon in the 1980s, it was back to Egypt to film society and its transformation, in a series of films for French television.
The cycle Jocelyne Saab, hors frontières offers us this international circulation in the Maghreb and Middle East region that fascinated the filmmaker and shaped her political ideals.

Guest programmer: Mathilde Rouxel