DIRECTOR: Cyril Aris
STARRING: Hasan Akil, Mounia Akl, Camille Salameh, Julia Kassar, Tino Karam
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 50 minutes
LANGUAGE: Arabic, English
PLOT: Set against the backdrop of three turbulent decades in Lebanon, this sweeping love story traces the enduring bond between Nino and Yasmina , two souls bound by an undeniable connection. Through years marked by passion, heartbreak, and resilience, they are forced to confront an impossible choice between love and survival. As the world around them fractures, Nino and Yasmina must decide whether to risk everything to build a family and carve out a fragile sense of happiness amid a nation in turmoil.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Beirut, Lebanon
To check out all previous submissions for Lebanon, click HERE.
STARRING: Hasan Akil, Mounia Akl, Camille Salameh, Julia Kassar, Tino Karam
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 50 minutes
LANGUAGE: Arabic, English
PLOT: Set against the backdrop of three turbulent decades in Lebanon, this sweeping love story traces the enduring bond between Nino and Yasmina , two souls bound by an undeniable connection. Through years marked by passion, heartbreak, and resilience, they are forced to confront an impossible choice between love and survival. As the world around them fractures, Nino and Yasmina must decide whether to risk everything to build a family and carve out a fragile sense of happiness amid a nation in turmoil.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Beirut, Lebanon
To check out all previous submissions for Lebanon, click HERE.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“I'm living with you here, in this moment."
Cyril Aris’ A Sad and Beautiful World is a masterful meditation on love, endurance, and the quiet tragedies of a nation caught in perpetual uncertainty. Set against the ever-shifting backdrop of Lebanon, the film unfolds with lyrical restraint, blending intimate emotion with political undercurrents that never overwhelm its human core. Aris’ direction is marked by an extraordinary precision with every image, every pause, feeling deliberate, forming a tapestry of melancholy and grace. Through its muted color palette and haunting score, the film situates personal longing within the broader ache of collective memory.
At its heart lies the magnetic, sweeping relationship between Nino and Yasmina, a love so consuming it seems to resist time and circumstance. Their connection is both tender and volatile, charged with an intensity that borders on the spiritual. Aris frames their intimacy not as an escape from the surrounding chaos, but as a fragile act of resistance against it. Theirs is a romance defined by contrasts: it is at once beautiful and bruised, fleeting and eternal. Through their shared silences and fleeting gestures, Aris captures the paradox of loving in a place where the future is perpetually uncertain where devotion must coexist with the fear of loss.
To watch A Sad and Beautiful World is to confront a mirror held up to Lebanon itself. It reflects the cycles of violence, corruption, and longing that continue to shape its people, while also acknowledging the small miracles of affection and resilience that persist within them. Aris refuses to sentimentalize this tension; instead, he exposes the exhaustion of a generation that knows too well how history repeats.
The film’s title articulates its essence. The world Aris portrays is indeed sad, haunted by disillusionment and decay, yet undeniably beautiful for the simple, stubborn ways its characters continue to love. In this duality lies the film’s quiet power: an acknowledgment that sorrow and beauty are not opposites but intertwined forces that define the human experience. Even in a country fractured by despair, Aris finds traces of grace with moments of connection, tenderness, and hope that endure against all reason. It is in these fleeting yet luminous moments that A Sad and Beautiful World reveals its deepest truth: that love, however fragile, remains the last and most profound act of defiance.
(This review contains spoilers.)
“I'm living with you here, in this moment."
Cyril Aris’ A Sad and Beautiful World is a masterful meditation on love, endurance, and the quiet tragedies of a nation caught in perpetual uncertainty. Set against the ever-shifting backdrop of Lebanon, the film unfolds with lyrical restraint, blending intimate emotion with political undercurrents that never overwhelm its human core. Aris’ direction is marked by an extraordinary precision with every image, every pause, feeling deliberate, forming a tapestry of melancholy and grace. Through its muted color palette and haunting score, the film situates personal longing within the broader ache of collective memory.
At its heart lies the magnetic, sweeping relationship between Nino and Yasmina, a love so consuming it seems to resist time and circumstance. Their connection is both tender and volatile, charged with an intensity that borders on the spiritual. Aris frames their intimacy not as an escape from the surrounding chaos, but as a fragile act of resistance against it. Theirs is a romance defined by contrasts: it is at once beautiful and bruised, fleeting and eternal. Through their shared silences and fleeting gestures, Aris captures the paradox of loving in a place where the future is perpetually uncertain where devotion must coexist with the fear of loss.
To watch A Sad and Beautiful World is to confront a mirror held up to Lebanon itself. It reflects the cycles of violence, corruption, and longing that continue to shape its people, while also acknowledging the small miracles of affection and resilience that persist within them. Aris refuses to sentimentalize this tension; instead, he exposes the exhaustion of a generation that knows too well how history repeats.
The film’s title articulates its essence. The world Aris portrays is indeed sad, haunted by disillusionment and decay, yet undeniably beautiful for the simple, stubborn ways its characters continue to love. In this duality lies the film’s quiet power: an acknowledgment that sorrow and beauty are not opposites but intertwined forces that define the human experience. Even in a country fractured by despair, Aris finds traces of grace with moments of connection, tenderness, and hope that endure against all reason. It is in these fleeting yet luminous moments that A Sad and Beautiful World reveals its deepest truth: that love, however fragile, remains the last and most profound act of defiance.
