Maarek hob / In the Battlefields

Set in Beirut in 1983, torn by the prolonged civil war, twelve-year-old Lina is the sad and only child of an embattled couple, Fouad and his pregnant wife, Thérèse. Lina hovers on the outskirts of domestic strife as the family tries to cope with the financial disaster brought on by Fouad's gambling. Living upstairs is Lina's tyrannical aunt Yvonne and her maid, Siham, who is a few years older than Lina. Siham's friendship is the one bright light in Lina's anxious life and Siham takes her along on dates with her boyfriend, Marwan. As an accomplice to Siham's secret love affair, Lina witnesses the physical, moral and psychological decline of the world around her.