In Lebanon, contemporary history isn't taught in schools. That stark fact introduces Do You Love Me, the brilliant debut feature film by Lana Daher. When a country lacks a centralized national archive, how do you piece together its story? You don't look at history books or official propaganda. You look at the moving images left behind by the people who actually lived it.
Daher's 76-minute film is a brilliant assembly of seven decades of Lebanese life. It isn't a dry lecture. It's an intense, moving journey compiled entirely from archival footage. Along with editor Qutaiba Barhamji, Daher combed through more than 20,000 potential sources. They looked at fiction films, home videos, newsreels, forgotten TV broadcasts, and old photographs. The result is a sharp look at the Lebanese collective psyche. It captures everything from the sunny optimism of the pre-war years to the heavy reality of ongoing conflict. Recently making waves in this space: Why the Mis-Teeq Reunion Proves UK Garage Never Truly Died.
The Art of Curation Without a State Archive
Most nations have a state-run institution to preserve their film and television history. Lebanon doesn't. Its memory is scattered across private collections, university basements, and the chaotic archives of local broadcasters. This fragmentation reflects the country's social divisions. It makes the act of preservation a form of political defiance.
Instead of organizing the footage in a neat chronological line, Daher cuts across different eras. A clip of a glitzy wedding from the 1970s might sit right next to home video footage of kids messing around in the 1990s, or raw footage of a neighborhood ruined by airstrikes. This non-linear editing style mimics how human memory actually functions. We don't remember our lives as a straight timeline. We remember them in flashes of emotion, repeating patterns, and sensory shocks. More insights on this are explored by Vanity Fair.
The title itself comes from a song by the Bendaly Family. They were a massive group of siblings who became pop stars in the late 1970s. For anyone who grew up in Beirut, that track brings back a specific kind of nostalgia. It represents a cultural era that got buried under westernized media imports and the trauma of a 15-year civil war. By centering the film on these cultural artifacts, Daher isn't just looking back. She is reclaiming a collective identity.
Showing Everyday Life Over Political Noise
It would be easy to make a documentary about Lebanon that focuses entirely on warlords, politicians, and sectarian divisions. Daher made a conscious choice to leave them out. You won't see talking-head interviews with government officials or recycled clips of political speeches. The filmmaker intentionally excluded the political class to focus on ordinary citizens.
This approach shows what conventional news broadcasts always miss. You see the rhythm of everyday survival. You see street vendors selling fruit, traffic jams on busy Beirut avenues, and people sunbathing on the Corniche while waves crash against the rocks. The film captures the strange, anxious cadence of life in a place where people always expect the next crisis. It shows the airplanes landing with tourists and expatriates, right alongside shots of smoke rising from bombings.
The film doesn't shy away from censorship either. In one telling sequence, two women look through old newspapers where entire columns have been blacked out by state censors. Even the prime minister's words weren't safe from the stamp of approval. It shows how authorities have consistently tried to control the national narrative, making independent filmmaking a vital counter-weight.
Why This Film Matters Right Now
With conflict still impacting the region, Do You Love Me feels incredibly urgent. It challenges the toxic idea that people should just forget the past and move on. In the film, a woman asks why everyone tells her to stop digging into old wars. The movie proves that burying trauma doesn't make it disappear. It just forces the next generation to inherit it.
Daher didn't just stop at making a movie. She also built a companion website that serves as an open-access index of all her archival sources. It is a practical toolkit for future researchers and artists who want to understand Lebanese cinema history. It features work from trailblazing female directors like Jocelyne Saab and Heiny Srour, keeping their radical legacies alive.
If you want to understand Beirut beyond the tragic headlines, you need to see how its people have captured their own lives on film. Do You Love Me is a masterful example of how archiving can be an act of resistance. It proves that even when a city is repeatedly broken, its stories cannot be erased.
To support the preservation of this heritage, explore independent Arab cinema platforms like the Arab Image Foundation or search out local screening schedules at independent theaters. Paying attention to these preserved histories is the best way to keep them from fading away.
