THIIIRD
Genre
Documentary
Running time
94 minutes
Year
2023
Language
Arabic
Subtitle
English
Country
Lebanon, Qatar and Saudi Arabia
Director
Karim Kassem
Bio
Producer
Karim Kassem
Cast
Fouad Mahouly, Mohammad Gharib, Nadim Mehreb
Scriptwriter
Karim Kassem, Nadia Hassan
A dilapidated garage on the outskirts of Beirut becomes a microcosm of Lebanon itself – a country not only questioning its future, but whether a future is even possible – in this vivid portrait of a car mechanic (Fouad Mahouly) whose customers require fixing as much as their cars. The film observes the daily routine of Fouad’s workshop in documentary detail, but it is the lives of the people he offers coffee while their cars are repaired that are the director’s focus. Two young men rehearse a play as they wait for their car to be serviced; a woman’s life is revealed in a tearful phone conversation and another customer shakes with anxiety, while the financial and social collapse of the country beyond Fouad’s yard affects them all. Their collective story, which goes beyond their immediate lives to explore the meaning of existence, unfolds like a dream.
Other movies
MARIA
Director: Pablo Larraín
Maria Callas, the greatest opera singer the world has seen, died aged only 53 in her sumptuous Parisian apartment, discovered by the devoted servants who had spent their days hiding her pills and trying to persuade her to eat. She had not sung in public for years. Larrain’s swirling work of fantasy shows La Callas remembering - or hallucinating - performances from her past, her long affair with Aristotle Onassis and her loveless childhood in wartime Athens, where she sang for German soldiers. Wandering Paris in her last days, Maria is trailed by an imaginary journalist to whom she tries to explain the pain and effort of creation. Angelina Jolie conveys Callas’s grandeur and her inner tumult in a landmark performance.
YALLA PARKOUR
Director: Areeb Zuaiter
One of Zuaiter’s strongest memories of her mother is her radiant smile as a young woman on the beach in Gaza on one of the family’s regular holidays to Palestine. Her cousins would mock Areeb’s “outsider” accent, but according to her mother, this was where she belonged. From her current home in the US, Zuaiter combs the web for images that evoke something of her mother and finds teenager Ahmed Matar and his friends, a parkour team who use the ruins of Gaza’s bombed buildings as obstacle courses, laughing for joy against a background of explosions. She tracks Ahmed down online and the two become friends; meanwhile, he is determined that parkour will be his route out of the prison their shared homeland has become.
ZORRO
Director: Jean Baptiste Saurel
In 1821, after the unexpected death of his father, Don Diego de la Vega (the always charismatic Jean Dujardin) is named mayor of Los Angeles, a city facing massive financial trouble and with greedy businessman Don Emmanuel close to taking over the city of angels. Don Diego feels that the answer is to bring back Zorro, but it's been 20 years since he's worn the mask, and he isn't getting any younger. While the old costume just about fits, Don Diego struggles to balance his dual identity as both Zorro and mayor. And though his wife Gabriella is unaware of his secret identity, she certainly takes an interest in the mystery man in the black cape. A humorous reimaging of the legend.
EEPHUS
Director: Carson Lund
New England, an amateur baseball game is being played in front of empty stands, from morning until nightfall. It’s the team's last match: tomorrow, the demolition of the arena will begin. Eephus refers to a particular pitch – a slow curveball that is difficult to hit – but one doesn't need to know the rules of baseball to grasp the ways of this world: a certain American, rural and masculinist culture. Awkward, aging and out of shape, the men are as enthusiastic about the drinks they bring to the game as they are about bats and balls. The bonds forged by the game are deep, however - and, by extension, so is their love of baseball itself in this touching and funny analogy of America.
