From their shared apartment in Brussels, Mon anxiously attempts to support his partner Karim, who while visiting Beirut is under constant threat of bombardment by Israeli forces. Through intimate WhatsApp messages and voice notes, and impersonal news broadcastings and livestreams, Mon is resigned to witness and provide care from a distance. While the screen provides a closeness for Mon and Karim, through its facilitation of instantaneous communication and the ability to reflect together on the looming violence, it also serves as a stark reminder of the physical separation between them.

The film’s title invokes Far from Vietnam, the 1967 collective essay film created by filmmakers including Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, and others, which explored how artists could respond to and express solidarity with a distant war. This question remains deeply relevant today, where in our hyperconnect digital world, watching conflicts from afar has become an ever more familiar experience. Images of violence now arrive instantly through our screens, creating an illusion of proximity while also emphasing our physical distance from the immediate, violent realities. Far from Beyrouth asks what it means to care for someone through a screen and problematises digital connection’s ability to bridge the divide between witnesses and those living through conflict.

Far from Beyrouth is screened in a block with two other short films about Lebanon.

LA