Origin: Palestine | Documentary | Director: Arab Loutfi | 90 minutes

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The Upper Gate (Bawabat Al-Fawqa),

dir. Arab Loutfi, Palestine 1991, 90 min., Arabic with English subtitles

Director Arab Loutfi describes the impetus behind the making of her documentary feature, The Upper Gate (Bawabat Al-Fawqa): When I returned to Sidon in 1983, it had just been occupied. My sister destroyed several documents in a panic because the Zionist soldiers were coming, and I lost many of my mementoes. Friends were killed, and places I had loved were destroyed. I wanted to capture memories that could not be destroyed. The city had survived, and many people I knew were still living there and taking stock of their losses. Actually, everyone in the documentary was someone I loved, and so the film was in many ways an extended form of my memory.