Frontiers of Dreams and Fears & Children of Shatila

Director
Mai Masri
Producer
Mai Masri
Year
2001, 1998
Spoken
Arabic
Subtitle
English
Country
Lebanon
Palestine
Length
106
Format
DVD
Off
Description

Frontiers of Dreams and Fears

This heart felt documentary from award winning filmmaker Mai Masri explores the enduring friendship that evolves between two Palestinan girls - Mona, who was born and raised in the economically marginalized Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, and Manar, who lives in the Dheisha refugee camp under Israeli control. The two girls begin their friendship as penpals, sharing the similarities and differences of life in the two refugee camps. Mona and Manar are finally able to meet face-to-face at the Lebanese-Israeli border during Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon. But when the second intifada suddenly erupts around them shortly thereafter, both girls must face heart-breaking changes in their lives.\

Children of Shatila

The Shatila refugee camp in Beirut first gained international attention after the Sabra and the Shatila massacre took place there in September of 1982. Located in Beirut's "belt of misery," the Shatila camp is home to 15,000 Palestinians and Lebanese who share a common experience of displacement, unemployment, and poverty. Fifty years after the exile of their grandparents from Palestine in 1948, the children of the Shatila share their drems of a better future, even as they attempt to come to terms with the reality of being refugees in a camp that has survived massacre, siege, and starvation.