Train-Trains 2: A bypass
A journey following the old coastal railway tracks, built by the British in 1942, that linked Lebanon to Palestine to the South, Syria and Turkey to the North; an extension of the Orient Express and Egypt Lines, today out of service. Originally filmed in 1999 as a personal vision of post-civil war Lebanon, the film focuses on residents living near derelict stations giving voice to often unheard people. By embedding Polaroid photographs into moving images, the film is also reminiscent of memory and its mechanisms, thus becoming itself an interrogation of what happened in between, now and then.
Rania Stephan, born in Beirut, Lebanon, graduated in Cinema Studies from Latrobe University, Australia and Paris VIII University, France. She has directed numerous short and medium length videos and creative documentaries, which are notable for their play with genres, and the long-running investigation of the themes of memory, identity, archeology of the image and the figure of the detective. Anchored in the turbulent reality of her country, her documentaries give a personal perspective to political events. She gives raw images a poetic edge, cutting chance encounters with humor. Her first feature film, The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (2011), won numerous prizes: Artist’s Prize: Sharjah Biennale 10; Renaud Victor Prize, FID Marseille International Cinema Festival; Best Filmmaker Award, Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Her second feature In Fields of Words: Conversations with Samar Yazbek (2022) won Best Film Prize at the Villa Medicis Film Festival in 2022 and is still on tour.
Film translated by: Tulin Al Hashemi
Lebanon,1999-2017, 30’
Director: Rania Stephan
Contact: ranjoun@gmail.com
