Edoyan’s Film ‘The Sea Between Us’ Explores Aftermath of Lebanese Civil War: Screening at Global Cinema Film Festival

Furthermore, she said, “The fact that I have chosen mothers to tell the story of war is not a coincidence. For me it is really important to see the perspective of women. Often women are ignored in times of war. Women usually are shown only as victims. They are not seen as solution makers or people who can create resolution in times of war.”

The Main Characters

The two women she chose to show their motivations for what they did during the war and how they reacted were very charismatic. She said, “They had no problem sharing their personal lives in front of the camera.” Their families too became part of the project and Edoyan spent much time to get to know them well.

The film is in the school of cinema verité. Absolutely nothing, Edoyan insisted, was scripted and the participants were paid nothing. The film follows the characters in their lives, but Edoyan did admit that she provided a lot of direction. If people talked over one another or lost focus in conversations, she would intervene to get them to stick to one theme at a time, without telling them what to say.

During the development phase of the film, she worked with a Lebanese cameraman and began to understand what the characters and the neighborhoods could give to the film. She returned with a Canadian team to do the full production filming but kept a soundman from Beirut who understood Arabic. The team was only three or four people in order not to be too intrusive in people’s homes.

The two main characters, Edoyan said, had their hearts broken from the war. Wafaa Khayrallah’s father financed the Christian Phalanges Party (Kataeb) and she and her husband were still involved in it. Hayat Fakhereldine, on the other hand, lived in a more multicultural environment and dealt with people as a social worker.

Initially, Edoyan said, she wanted to highlight Hayat’s work with women for their emancipation. She also worked with young men and was finding new ways of educating them. Edoyan said, “Hayat would tell me this is my way of making young men, future fighters, aware that they have choices in life. They don’t need to go to war. They can learn a trade. They can work. They can provide for their families.” Edoyan found this to be a powerful alternative to violence, exclaiming “This is not a fully bullet-proof solution, but it is a solution.”

Hayat wanted to get people to live peacefully side-by-side in a more unified city. In her own family, there was intermarriage between Christians and Muslims. Hayat also worked to calm tensions in her primarily Shiite neighborhood of Nabaa (part of the municipality of Bourdj Hammoud) between Syrian refugees and the Lebanese.

However, what Edoyan did not know until filming was that Hayat’s nephew Ali was a Hezbollah (a Lebanese Shiite Islamist party) fighter who was just killed. Edoyan said, “Ali’s death really changed the narrative arc for Hayat. This is one concrete example of how none of this was scripted.”

In contrast with Hayat, Wafaa appeared more traumatized from her childhood. Edoyan said, “I think the scars ran deeper. She is fearful of those who don’t resemble her, of going into neighborhoods that are not Christian.” She personally had participated as a fighter in the civil war and is shown in the film trying to persuade her son Anthony to carry on her legacy and point of view. She tried to train him to shoot a rifle but Anthony, only sixteen, was against political parties and fighting.

He was a prime example in the film of the younger generation. The Internet connected him to a whole different world and he would pay no attention to the political talk of his parents. Interestingly, Edoyan felt it was harder to get the younger generation to speak candidly on film as they were media savvy and cautious, fearing perhaps future repercussions. She initially had a young girl as a third character but she pulled out as she was uneasy sharing everything with the public. Consequently, Edoyan focused on her two main characters, who are middle aged, along with their families.

As she finished the film, on the one hand, Edoyan was left inspired by the protests led from October 2019 by young Lebanese against corruption. At showings of the film, she said she would say the film ends where the new revolution picks up.

On the other hand, at present, the same people continue to stay in control of the Lebanese government. She concluded, “There is a bright new generation ready to take the reins, but no one is giving it to them. It is a very, very complicated situation. I don’t know what the solution is.”

What’s Next

“The Sea Between Us” premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam in 2019 and there was going to be a special premiere in Canada with the two main protagonists, but the spread of covid cancelled this. Covid also forced Edoyan to only participate virtually in four other festivals. The film is still playing in Canada, and this weekend will be screening online at the Global Cinema Film Festival (GCFF) of Boston, Mass. As the effects of covid become more controlled, Edoyan hopes to be able to have more physical events, including a showing in Beirut.

While Edoyan feels she will make more films on Lebanon in the future, her next feature-length project, “Spirits Rebellious,” will be shot in the Armenian village of Gandza in Javakhk (in Georgia). She said she first visited there in 2010 and fell in love with the people. She declared: “They really live in a unique situation. You get to this village, and you think, you are in a Pissarro painting, in an Impressionistic painting. It looks like everything stopped in the 19^th century.”

Winters are very harsh and life is difficult in this region, where Armenian refugees fled Ottoman oppression starting in the 19^th century. The poet Vahan Teryan was born in this village in 1885, and today it has a museum dedicated to him and takes great pride in literature, Edoyan said. A lot of children are born there so there are two schools. The children get higher education in Tbilisi and Yerevan, but many come back. Old and new, she said, are found side by side, and though geographically cut off, the Internet opened horizons to the outside world. Consequently, young people want to introduce modern ideas to village life.

Edoyan said she has been building relationships with the villagers over the last year and has already obtained financing for her film. She is also working on a medium-length documentary, “Malika,” about a Sri Lankan migrant worker in Lebanon who bought land and a house in her home country only to find when she returned there that her family stole it from her by forging documents.

For more information about her film at the GCFF, go to https://www.worldwidecinemaframes.com/ and https://festival.filmocracy.com/gcff/, and for passes, see https://www.goelevent.com/GlobalCinemaFF/Pass/Sale.