Screening
Asian New Force Category Finalist
Submarine
Mounia Akl
Lebanon / Col / 20’ 50” / In Arabic with English subtitles
Under the imminent threat of Lebanon’s garbage crisis, Hala, a wild child inside of a woman, is the only one to refuse evacuation, clinging to whatever remains of home.
Set against the backdrop of Lebanon’s current garbage crisis and sociopolitical context, and inspired by Mounia Akl’s own search about what it means to be Lebanese in these surreal times, Submarine examines the fear of having to leave one’s country and home.
Submarine takes place in a dystopian near future that is a realization of these fears. It gazes at the past, the present, and the faculty we have to connect both: Memory. It glides between present and past—between imagined futures and nostalgia.
We discover a fatherless generation, stripped of hope, in a system that has reached extraordinary levels of filth, and through Hala’s eyes and footsteps, we arm ourselves with her denial, manifest her love for her home, and keep alive—if only for a moment—the ghost of a better time.
Submarine takes place in a dystopian near future that is a realization of these fears. It gazes at the past, the present, and the faculty we have to connect both: Memory. It glides between present and past—between imagined futures and nostalgia.
We discover a fatherless generation, stripped of hope, in a system that has reached extraordinary levels of filth, and through Hala’s eyes and footsteps, we arm ourselves with her denial, manifest her love for her home, and keep alive—if only for a moment—the ghost of a better time.
