A Sad and Beautiful World

During a bombing raid in Beirut, Nino and Yasmina are born one minute apart. When they meet again as adults, a bond that was never truly broken is renewed. Director Aris lets the connection between them carry a story greater than just love. Desire, powerlessness, belonging, loss, exile, and resignation are not portrayed as opposites, but as forces that Nino and Yasmina live with—and against.

A Sad and Beautiful World is a visually striking and epic love story that manages to encompass whole people, whole lives, and whole histories. In the absence of definitive answers, the film becomes a reflection on how we deal with the unresolved. With humor, shifts in rhythm, and musical leaps, Aris keeps the film vibrant, letting the intimacy rise and fall with the passage of time. This is an idea-driven, yet gentle narrative that allows time itself to be the engine—and reminds us that neither nations, relationships, nor history are ever truly finished. They are processes that must be renegotiated, again and again.