November 6 at Dalhousie: Discover the Stories Behind the Lebanese Film Festival’s Special Short-Film Screening
Five films. Five different stories. Ninety-two minutes of cinema exploring ambition, memory, love, identity and the meaning of belonging.
On Friday, November 6, the Lebanese Film Festival in Canada (LFFC) opens its tenth-anniversary celebrations with a special screening presented in collaboration with Alliance Française Halifax and Dalhousie University.
For Nova Scotia’s Acadian and Francophone communities, this is an opportunity to discover contemporary Lebanese and Francophone filmmaking through stories that cross languages, cultures and generations.
And the films themselves offer compelling reasons to attend.
To Fade Away: The Forgotten Pioneer Who Dreamed of Solar Energy
Director: Camille Hamadé | 16 minutes | Lebanon/United States
Imagine a Lebanese scientist pursuing revolutionary solar-energy technology in America in 1935, decades before renewable energy became a global priority.
To Fade Away tells the remarkable story of Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah, a Lebanese inventor whose ambitions collide with powerful commercial interests.
When his employer refuses to support his solar-energy project, Al-Sabbah seeks alternative financing. But his determination to pursue his dream brings unexpected resistance and growing fears for his safety.
Based on historical events, the film explores scientific ambition, corporate power and the struggle for recognition.
Director Camille Hamadé, a French-Lebanese filmmaker, received a BAFTA-Yugo Short Film Commissioning Grant in 2024 to support the project.
For anyone interested in science, innovation or the extraordinary contributions of overlooked pioneers, this film promises a fascinating discovery.
Child in the Frame: When a Daughter Becomes Her Mother’s Caregiver
Director: Emilio Bou Onk | 20 minutes | Lebanon
Some of cinema’s most powerful stories unfold within the walls of an ordinary home.
Child in the Frame is an intimate documentary exploring dementia, memory and the changing relationship between a mother and daughter.
As illness gradually alters the mother’s perception of reality, her daughter must confront an emotionally difficult transformation.
The woman who once provided protection and care now needs both herself.
The film examines the painful reversal of family roles and the extraordinary patience required when love becomes inseparable from caregiving.
Its subject is universal.
Whether Lebanese, Acadian, French or Canadian, many families have experienced the heartbreak of watching a loved one gradually lose their memories.
This is a film likely to provoke reflection long after the screening ends.
Bow: An Eight-Minute Journey into Mystery
Director: Pio Chahine | 8 minutes | Lebanon
Not every short film needs a long running time to create tension.
Bow takes audiences into a mysterious butcher shop where men have a disturbing tendency to disappear.
A delivery driver encounters the shop’s enigmatic female owner, while an unusually devoted narrator recounts events with unsettling familiarity.
As the story develops, the boundaries between attraction, manipulation and danger become increasingly uncertain.
The film promises a striking change of atmosphere within the evening’s program.
Dark, intriguing and psychologically charged, Bow demonstrates how short-form cinema can establish an entire world in just a few minutes.
For viewers who enjoy suspense and unconventional storytelling, this may be the evening’s most unexpected experience.
The Other Country: Where Do We Truly Belong?
Director: Sylvain Adas | 24 minutes | France/Lebanon
What happens when the country you inherited through family memories feels both familiar and foreign?
In The Other Country, French-Lebanese filmmaker Sylvain Adas returns alone to Lebanon following the devastating Beirut port explosion of August 2020.
Born and raised in Paris, Adas travels to the country his parents left, arriving at approximately the same age they were when they emigrated.
Through personal reflections, diary entries and family portraits, he explores his relationship with a homeland he knows intimately through stories but has experienced differently.
The documentary raises questions familiar to many Francophone Canadians whose families have crossed borders.
Can someone belong equally to two countries? Can inherited memories become part of one’s own identity?
For Acadians, immigrants and second-generation Canadians, these questions offer particularly meaningful opportunities for reflection.
Take Care of My Johny: A Wedding That Becomes a Farewell
Director: Anthony Bou Rjeily | 24 minutes | Lebanon/France
Perhaps the evening’s most emotionally accessible story is Take Care of My Johny.
Johny, the only son of a loving Lebanese family, is preparing to marry his French fiancée, Eloïse, and begin a new life in France.
What initially appears to be a joyful wedding documentary gradually reveals something more complicated.
For Johny’s family, the celebration also marks a painful separation.
They travel to France to celebrate his marriage, knowing they will return home without him.
Filmed between Lebanon and France, the documentary captures the happiness of two families coming together alongside the sadness of a family watching its son build a future far away.
It is a story about love, sacrifice and the emotional price of emigration.
Anyone who has watched a child, sibling or close friend leave home may recognize something deeply personal in this film.
You do not need Lebanese ancestry to appreciate these stories.
This evening is for cinema enthusiasts, students, educators, Francophone associations, Acadian families and anyone curious about international filmmaking.
Bring your friends, classmates or colleagues. Discover new filmmakers. Share your reactions during the discussion.
Most importantly, support an initiative that brings international cinema to Halifax and introduces audiences to voices they might otherwise never encounter.
Friday, November 6, 2026
Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, Room 1020
Dalhousie University, 6100 University Avenue, Halifax
6:00 p.m. — Doors open and networking
6:30 p.m. — Opening remarks
6:45 p.m. — Five short-film screenings
Following the screenings — Discussion with festival guests
