Do You Love Me
Spring Grants 2019 - Development Stage
Lana Daher / Feature Documentary / Lebanon, Germany, Qatar / 80 min / Interests: Coming of age, Music, Politics, History, Social Issues, War, Youth, Immigration, Identity, Creative Documentary
Synopsis
‘Do You Love Me’, named after the widely popular Bendaly Family song that was released in 1978 during the Lebanese Civil War, is a coming-of-age film in the form of an essay documentary, about the generations of Lebanese that transitioned from youth to adulthood during, and post-civil war (1975 – present). Using solely archive footage, the film weaves together three main narrative lines. In the foreground is society (various people’s personal accounts as well as war journalists, politicians, musicians etc.). In the background is the historical, military and political, life during the civil war. In the middle ground is the music focusing on René and Re-Mi Bendaly (two generations of the Bendaly Family) as well as their contemporaries (the popular musicians of the time). Depicting a country that denies its past and ignores its present, ‘Do You Love Me’ is a mosaic of social history and an emotional ethnography. The film is not the historical story of the civil war or the story of a small musical family, but using music and interviews it tells the untold story of a generation’s collective experience.
Credits
- Director
- Lana Daher
- Screenwriter
- Lana Daher
- Producer
- Jasper Mielke
- Production Company
- Wood Water Films
About the Director
Lana Daher is a filmmaker living and working in Beirut. She earned her MA in Filmmaking (Directing) from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2012 and earlier completed her BFA in Graphic Design at the American University of Beirut. She has since shot and directed music videos, short films as well as documentaries centring on designers and their practices. ‘Do You Love Me’ is her first feature film which she is directing as well as co-producing.