''Beirut: The Last Home Movie'' is a 1987

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by Jennifer Fox. It follows the life of Gaby Bustros and her family, who live in a 200-year-old mansion in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

during the

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...

. The

Bustros The Bustros family is a prominent Lebanese Antiochian Greek Orthodox family. One of the “Seven Families”, it is one of the original Beirut families along with the descendants of Sursock, Fernaine, Dagher, Trad, Tueni and Gebeily families, who ...

family, one of the noble families of

, remain in their ancestral home despite the endless war that surrounds them.

Exhibition

The film was screened at the

Berlin Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

, the

London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shor ...

, and at INPUT, the International Television Conference. It was broadcast on US television as a

Frontline Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield. Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to: Books and publications * ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant * ''Frontlines ...

special on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

in 1991. The film was awarded the Excellence In Cinematography Award and won the Grand Jury Prize Documentary at the 1988 Sundance Film Festival. It opened at the Film Forum in NYC in 1988 and did a thirty city US theatrical release, distributed by Circle Releasing, before airing as a Frontline Special on PBS in 1990.

Awards

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

Grand Jury Prize Best Documentary *

Best Cinematography * Soc. Civile des Aut. - Multimedia Best Screenplay * Women and Cinema Argentina - Press Award * C.I.N.E. - Golden Eagle Award * San Francisco Film Festival - Golden Gate Award *

Cinéma du Réel Cinéma du Réel (Cinema of the Real) is an international documentary film festival organized by the BPI-Bibliothèque publique d'information (Public Information Library) in Paris and was founded in 1978. The festival presents about 200 films per ye ...

(

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) - Grand Prix

References

External links

*
''Beirut: The Last Home Movie''
at Women Make Movies 1987 films American documentary films Sundance Film Festival award-winning films 1987 documentary films Lebanese Civil War films Documentary films about families Documentary films about war Lebanese documentary films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films {{war-documentary-film-stub