In Moondove, a poetic and beautifully shot film, Lebanese director Karim Kassem explores the human stories behind an ongoing crisis in a Lebanese mountain village. The film was screened at the ALFILM Arabic Film Festival in Berlin in April 2025 with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Following the screening, Tanja Tabbara spoke with Karim Kassem about his film and making films in Lebanon today.
Karim Kassem is an award-winning director and cinematographer.
You moved back from New York to Beirut three years ago. Why did you take that decision?
Karim Kassem: Primarily I decided to move back because my visa expired and I got stuck in Lebanon, waiting for my new artist visa, which took one year and eight months to process. Usually it takes three months. While I was waiting in Lebanon, I decided to stay and continue making my films there, because ultimately my films all take place in Lebanon. I moved back to Lebanon in 2022 and have done three films since.
How was it to move back to Lebanon?
Actually, the irony is that I came back after the explosion [of the Beirut Port], when most of my friends had left — the people who had vowed to never leave. I thus lost almost all my friends, as they traveled and I moved back. It was kind of a weird shift for me. Something just pulled me back, especially after witnessing the explosion. I almost died getting blown out of my room. It was then, after the explosion, that I felt closer to death, and that kind of lit the fire under me, even more than it already was lit. So all these ideas came to me, and all these sorts of concepts were there in front of me. I also have the capacity to be my own cinematographer and do films with almost no money. After the explosion, I made a silent film.
Do you share the optimism that some people have regarding the new president and government in Lebanon? Do you believe there will be positive change?
I think this new government is just a facade, installed by the US. I think there needs to be a couple more generations to wake up from sectarianism, from a lot of other things, internally, but also externally. We’re just like a puppet state. I’ve always had this dilemma to be able to see Lebanon as a sovereign entity. I think it’s always been sort of like a transitory experimental state.
The film you are working on now you were not able to shoot because of the war?
The film I’m working on now is my sixth film in development, but it was supposed to be my fifth. I didn’t get funding, nor did I get the opportunity to shoot because of the war and the Israeli bombing. So I cooked up another film without telling anyone, and went back to the same village where I shot [Moondove], and explored one character whom everyone was obsessed with — like, all my family, my friends, the audience, everyone was like, “we want to see more of this guy”. So I went up and shot a new film and now it’s in post-production.
In your films you seem to be very fascinated with the contradictions that Lebanon produces? There is this contrast between the non-functioning environment: no electricity, no water, and constant chaos. This all stands in contrast to the relationships between the people you focus on, as for example the warmth of the caring older couple, which has also a certain sadness, because their days are numbered, nothing more seems to happen in their lives, except for observing and caring for each other and waiting for death to come.
I don’t think it’s a deliberate choice to focus on contradiction. It really stems from the choice of working with real people, non-actors from the street. My connection to them feels authentic. And when I look through the viewfinder, I kind of believe what I’m seeing. And then I can, of course, amplify my own fiction, my own ideas, my own script and narratives. But I try to stay true to their nature, their characters. I wouldn’t say they are marginalized people, but sort of shadow people. People who live in the shadows that we haven’t seen in this way. Like, of course we see people from Lebanon in films, sometimes, but maybe not in this approach to cinema, with a focus on their feelings.
Wherever you were, you’re at the bottom of the pit with everyone else. That’s where I want to go. These places tell their stories.
How did you develop the idea of the film?
The main idea developed from the idea of departures. I started with this word, and what it means to me that I’ve departed. And then, I had this crisis of whether should I come back or not? Always leaving and coming back, which is kind of everyone’s situation in Lebanon. Also because of my background in metaphysics. I always think of how things are connected in most simple ways. You will see that in the film. When you get to know all the characters, and when they meet, it’s a very mundane crossing. You know so much about all those characters, but they don’t know anything about each other. I like to focus on these little things, how people connect to each other.
The characters in the film — and almost all are elderly people — are linked through this one thread of the theatre play that is called “departures”. What is the idea behind the theatre play and why only elderly people?
You walk around the village, and see that it’s deserted from young people. I didn’t really have a choice but to sort of focus on the older people, the departures of these people, the types of departures: there’s death departure, there’s leaving the country departure, and there’s a non-departure, which is like an anti-departure where you get stuck and you go in circles, like Ghassan. His life is sort of circular and he connects the film in a way for me because we use the car as a medium to move, whereas the other stories, they’re sort of like static in their own place. And with Sona and Nabih, the elderly couple, it’s more like, waiting, to see who’s going to die first. When I sat down with them for many, many months and had many, many coffees with them, I always felt that she was the one that had the anxiety, not him. Ironically, she dies in the end. It’s really the stage, this play that never really happens. The stage is Lebanon at the end of the day.
Why did you originally want to do a film about reincarnation?
In the beginning, when I was going to do research in this village, I wanted to do a film about reincarnation, because I sort of felt magnetically drawn towards this topic, because I believe in it. That was the first idea. Interestingly enough, in the place where we shot, reincarnation is mostly believed in. It’s like a fact. It’s not even just a belief. But two weeks prior to filming, the main character dropped out. So I couldn’t make that film, and had to improvise a new film, and it felt like the other film departed from me, and I had to sort of reincarnate a new film. It turned out better than the original script. Much better.
Did you come across a lot of violence from the civil war in the history of the village while doing research?
When I came with the intention of understanding reincarnation and doing studies on it, they would drive me around the villages and tell me this really struck here, this bridge, that bridge, whatever. There were stories of people being murdered but it was within the villages themselves, and people who got reincarnated after that because most violent deaths generate reincarnation stories.
I read your film Moondove as an homage to the Lebanese people, especially the older generations who endure in the mountains despite the hardships?
My interest was to see how people feel in a village. You’re surrounded by this amazing nature, but it’s so difficult living there, so many problems. There’s water problems, electricity problems. There’s no money, there’s no economy. So it really is tougher than it looks and seems. I wanted to show that these people are struggling, like whether they’re living in a mansion like Sona and Nabih, they still don’t have electricity. They’re broke. They lost their money in the banks. Everything got lost. Wherever you were, you’re at the bottom of the pit with everyone else. That’s where I want to go. These places tell their stories.