IN THE SHADOW OF BEIRUT

Refugees have been flowing into Sabra and Shatila, a lawless no-man’s-land on the edge of the Lebanese capital, since 1948; where 30,000 stateless people now live. Over four years, the directors of this sensitive documentary follow four families in desperate circumstances: An eight-year-old boy ransacks rubbish bins to support his family, who were forced to flee Syria; a devoted father battles his own persistent drug habit; a very different father imprisons his teenage daughter for fear of what might happen to her outside and a Romany family gathers around the bed of a child with a painful skin disease, unable to take her to a hospital. Most striking, however, is the power of these desperate people’s love. This documentary is Ireland's official nomination for the Oscars.