“I brought you something, maybe we’ll remember it. Do you want to open it together?” The opening words capture Sara-Rose Antoun’s attempt to construct a moment of shared reflection, and to re-member Lebanon’s fragmented history. Antoun brings us into an intimate conversation with her grandfather, as she presents him objects from the suitcase he packed after fleeing war in Lebanon in 1974, using these items to confront the separation and distance suggested by the film’s title.

What is the Scope of the Gulf Separating Us? explores distance in two forms, generational and geographical. By reflecting together on the personal fragments of the suitcase, Antoun and her grandfather bridge the gap between them, constructing a shared, collective memory of Lebanon. At the same time, the film examines their physical distance from their homeland, as they now reside in Europe. Objects described as souvenirs, such as used ammunition casings and a cassette tape preserve Lebanon’s past, becoming vessels of memory that forge an almost metaphysical connection to a homeland that remains physically far.

Antoun elaborates on this relationship between distance and proximity by placing pixelated WhatsApp videos of current conflicts in Lebanon, specifically the Israeli bombing of her homeland, alongside the suitcase’s objects. The pixelated images connect past and present histories of violence, while also questioning how digital images can make distant conflicts feel both near and afar.

What is the Scope of the Gulf Separating Us? is screened in a block with two other short films about Lebanon.

LA