Do You Love Me
Lana Daher / Lebanon, France, Germany & Qatar / 2025 / 77 min
Lebanese festival hit that paints a fragmented portrait of a country, a city, and a people. A cinematic love letter to Lebanon - and a virtuoso act of creative filmmaking.
How do you tell the modern history of a country when that country is Lebanon – a country whose people have, to put it mildly, been through a lot? One could do as filmmaker Lana Daher. With her festival hit ‘Do You Love Me’, she has created a uniquely original portrait (and love letter) to her country and her hometown, Beirut.
‘Do You Love Me’ consists exclusively of archive material from no less than 70 years and from more than 2,000 sources(!). Daher has masterfully assembled a wealth of clips from films, tv, home videos, and photographs into a panoramic collage that ties the threads together across time.
A journalist returns to a home that has been completely destroyed by Israeli air strikes. A taxi driver tells of an unfinished building that now towers over the city like a war monument. Through citizens, filmmakers, and artists, creative expression stands as a tribute to resistance, renewal, and collective memory.