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Step by Step (Khutwa Khutwa) Randa Chahal Sabbagh (Lebanon; 1978, 70 min.)
Tue. May 11, 2:15 p.m. & 6:15 p.m.
Screens with Another Time Another Lebanon (Liban d’autrefois)
. Total run time is 81 minutes.
Officially, the Lebanese civil war erupted on April 13th, 1975, when right-wing Christian militias attacked a bus carrying Palestinian civilians (women and children for the most part). That first chapter of violence was brought to a halt in June of 1976, when a truce was brokered and an Arab League mandated Arab army –overwhelmingly Syrian– was deployed to oversee ‘peace’. Step by Step is the result of two years’ worth of research into the true causes of Lebanon’s conflict: inequities in the country’s social, economic and political structures, endemic contradictions in the regime of power-sharing between religious communities, the imbrication of the country in the Arab-Israeli conflict and U.S. hegemony in the region. In 1978, when Israel invades south Lebanon, the capital’s dismemberment and U.S.-led campaign to annihilate the Palestinian resistance seem afoot.
“It is in this sense that the film remains unfinished, it wanted to accompany the compelling reality of a country, a people’s, suffering.”–Randa Chahal Sabbagh.
Set to commentary by the filmmaker, Step by Step is a rare testament by a politically-engaged filmmaker to make sense of the horror of war, witnessed day by day.
Synopsis
Credits
Written by: Randa Chahal Sabbagh (including a poem by Talal Haïdar)
Directors of photography: Roby Breidi and Edmon Kach
Sound: Tarek Chahine, Karim Chahine and Michel Berthez
Editor: Mireille Abramovici
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