Merely a smell by Maher Abi Samra
Lebanon
9 min | 2007
The Film
Summer 2006, Israeli war on Lebanon. A boat docks in a besieged Beirut to evacuate foreign nationals. From under the rubble of destroyed buildings, relief workers pull the bodies of the dead. Moving between light and darkness, life and its extinction, bodies redraw the boundaries of other bodies, the smell of death cloaking all.‘Merely a Smell’ received several awards including the Golden Dove (International Competition Documentary Film) of the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film - DOK Leipzig, 2007
The Filmmaker
Maher Abi Samra (b. 1965, lives in Beirut) studied drama arts at the Lebanese University in Beirut and audio-visual studies at the Institut National de l’Image et du Son in Paris, and has worked as a photo-journalist for Lebanese dailies and international agencies. His feature length documentary ‘Shatila Roundabout’ (2004) won the Prix Ulysse du Documentaire at the Festival Cinéma Méditerranéen Montpellier, 2006. ‘Merely a Smell’ (2007) was awarded best short documentary at DOK Leipzig 2007 and at Brazil's It's All True International Documentary Film Festival in 2008.Selected filmography: ‘Mariam’ (2006), ‘Women of Hezbollah’ (2000), and ‘Chronicles of Return’ (1995).
